THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW

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©Copyright 2002, Jon Symons

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ISBN: 0-9542448-0-X

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The Day After Tomorrow

Jon Symons
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my son, Christopher Jon, who died
on November 18th 1990, aged just thirteen and a half years.
Neither words, nor thoughts can begin to describe the
feelings of loss and devastation his death caused to his mother,
his younger brother and myself.
To know his love was life’s greatest gift.
Acknowledgements

The Day After Tomorrow was written over a period of eight

months and a good number of the following chapters and
characters therein are the product of too many sleepless nights.
For her patience and unswerving support, I must thank the
person who allowed me to slip out of bed in the early hours
and tap away on the keyboard. Thanks Mosie, for your
understanding and love.
I must also thank the other friends who helped with the
editing, proofing, cover, logo design, artwork and layout – they
include Michael Williams, Jenny Hewitt, Yvonne Richards, Val
McLennan, Judith Hampson, Scott MacLeod, Rachel Meek,
Chris Rogers, Jeff Bucchino and Stephen Young.
I’d like to thank my mum for nurturing my love of writing
and also the other members of my immediate family who read
the draft copies and did not laugh too hard or too long.
And finally, there’s Paul David, my precious younger son,
who will never know how important he is in my life. Without
his love, my passage over the last twelve years would have been
far, far harder. He makes me proud to be his father.

Jon Symons
May 2002
"The only thing new in the world, is the history that you don’t
know." Harry Truman

"We need men who can dream of things that never were."
John F. Kennedy

Prologue
Friday, November 22nd 1963

T he sun was nearing its zenith, the shooter watching the

growing crowds and sensing the charge of excitement that
hung over Dealey Plaza. He was standing back from the
barriers, his two-piece suit and overcoat seemingly out of place
with the short-sleeve shirts and slacks worn by the thronging
office workers. A young boy skipped past him, a fluttering
Stars and Stripes clutched tightly in his small hand. The
shooter continued to watch the crowds for several more
minutes before turning and casually walking back towards a
wooden fence that snaked diagonally along a grassy knoll
above and to the left of the Plaza. Opposite, and to his right,
was the Texas Book Depository.
He and Brown had checked the whole route. The car would
travel down Main Street, past Police Headquarters, along Field
Street and into Dealey Plaza. They had chosen the Plaza
because the motorcade would slow to below five miles per
hour as it negotiated the ninety degree bend beneath the
concrete bridge at the far end.
The open-top car would be in full view for five seconds;
their orders specific: head shots only. Under no circumstances
were they to shoot if there was even the slightest chance of
hitting any of the other passengers. The shooter looked back
down towards the Book Depository, knowing that his partner

9
would already be in position. He wondered, not for the first
time that morning, whether Lee would react as they had
planned. The previous evening, Brown had planted the bolt-
action rifle with the ex-marine’s palm print on the stock and
they had both watched from the parked car as he had entered
the building at eight thirty-two. It was now a little after twelve
seventeen, one seventeen in Washington.
The outriders were now at the top of Field Street, the crowd
beginning to press forward as the flashing lights came into
view. The shooter had picked his firing position with care.
Behind him was an open area and a small copse of trees, his
nondescript rental parked on the other side. He had already
paced the distance from the wooden fence to the car; it was
five minutes at a brisk walk, seven if he took his time. The sun
was now directly overhead, the reflected glare from the
Depository windows thankfully gone, making the downwind
one-hundred-yard shot far easier.
He had measured the distance back to the fence and
adjusted his telescopic sight for the slight drop in elevation.
The soft nose bullets would reach maximum velocity by the
time they smacked into the mark’s head. He knew all too well
the damage the bullets would cause. The victim’s brain would
implode into a pink mush as the shock waves spread through
the skull; the force of the exploding exit wound sucking the
dying flesh through the gaping hole and showering both car
and passengers with wet, dead brain matter. He knew his
partner would have the harder shot and that the trajectory
would have to be judged perfectly to ensure the bullet passed
over the woman and into her husband’s head.
The crowd suddenly began to cheer more loudly. The
shooter knelt down behind the picket fence, carefully lowering
the rifle from under his overcoat and placing it between his
legs. He waited several seconds, slipped out of his coat and
casually laid it over the rifle. He looked around and then
removed his dark shades. There was no one within fifteen
yards of his position; all eyes looking left, towards the top of

10
the road and the headlights of the leading car and the
motorcycle outriders. Gathering up the coat, he casually
draped it over the fence, only the final six inches of the gun’s
barrel protruding from the material. Pulling the flaps back, he
squinted through the telescopic sight. He could not miss: the
man’s head looked like an over-ripe pumpkin.
A fresh tremor of excitement ran through the crowd, their
heads craning over the barriers and the uniformed cops on
either side of the wide Plaza. More cheers rang out as the
motorcade rolled slowly down the centre of the road. The man
in the back was smiling and, as the car reached the tight bend
opposite the Depository, he turned and looked directly
towards the grassy knoll and the man leaning over the fence.
The smile that had charmed a post-war generation beamed
with confidence. He raised his arm and waved. Crack. The first
bullet entered the President’s right temple and exited through
the base of his skull. Crack. The second bullet entered his neck
and severed his main artery. Crack. The third bullet missed,
hitting Governor Connally.
The shooter swore as he placed the gun between his legs
and pulled on the coat, his eyes never leaving the crowd. Their
patriotic cheers had already been replaced, first by murmurs of
confusion and then by sounds of disbelief. A secret service
agent was scrambling over the back of the presidential car as
people threw themselves to the ground, pandemonium and
panic now breaking out around Dealey Plaza. Jackie’s two-
piece pink suit was blood splattered, her eyes wide and horror-
filled as she screamed for someone to help them. She tried to
grab hold of Clint Hill’s wrist as the agent looked into the car
and registered that the back of the President’s head was
missing. John Connally was semi-conscious, the upper half of
his body slumped sideways on his hysterical wife’s lap.
Jackie’s black hair blew in the wind as the driver gunned the
engine and accelerated towards the freeway and Parkland
Memorial Hospital.
The man walking towards the small copse of trees knew

11
that it was already too late; he had seen the wet, sickening
mush through his telescopic sight, the same pink mush that
millions would later see replayed in slow motion on the
Zapruder footage.

12
Thursday, November 22nd 1990

J ohn Capriotti looked at his watch and silently cursed his

Editor. British Airways flew direct from Houston to
London with a connecting flight from Heathrow to Moscow.
Apparently, the Chronicle now had a special discount with the
ailing Pan Am and it was cheaper to fly from Houston to New
York’s JFK and then on to London. He had questioned the
logic, pointing out that he would be able to claim an extra
day’s expenses. The man in accounts had sniffed and told him
that it was out of his hands.
Capriotti pulled heavily on his cigarette and then stubbed
it out in the metal ashtray, the electronic board above his head
finally flashing and telling him to board now. He picked up
his briefcase and walked towards the departure gate and the
blue and white nose of the Pan Am 747 Clipper looming
large on the other side of the plate glass window. The pilot
was running the last of his pre-flight checks, the baggage
handlers closing the forward cargo door. The smiling girl
checked his boarding pass and then waved him through. He
took the left-hand corridor and walked along the cold metal
skyway to the business class section. As the purser showed
him to his seat, he turned down the proffered glass of
champagne and instead took the orange juice, his four-hour
wait at JFK having already seen him knock back too many
Jack Daniels. He removed his shoes and then placed his
briefcase in the overhead locker. The stewardess handed him
the menu, video card and a set of earphones. He tried and
failed to match her welcoming smile.
Several minutes later she came back and offered him a
selection of newspapers. He chose the Washington Post and the
front page with a picture of Bush shaking hands with Margaret
Thatcher. Brave man, Capriotti thought. He had interviewed
the British Prime Minister during one of her rare visits to

13
Dallas. She had been spending time with her son and he’d
been made patently aware of her direct and overbearing
manner. The headline was succinct and to the point.
'Thatcher Calls the Tune.' Capriotti smiled, despite his black
mood. Several days earlier he had spoken with James Baker,
the man Bush had tasked with trying to convince Saddam
Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait. Once that had failed, the
Secretary of State had been given the difficult job of making
sure that the coalition forces gathering on the Saudi border
would stand firm. Baker had spent the previous weeks
shuttling between Washington, Cairo, London, Moscow and
Tel Aviv. He had taken the journalist’s call on one of his rare
days in the country’s capital, Capriotti avoiding the normal
preamble and simply asking if Thatcher and Bush would back
down. Baker had laughed aloud. "Margaret won’t let him, even
if he wanted to. No, this thing’s going to the wire. Either
Saddam withdraws or we force him out."
After take-off, Capriotti leaned back in the seat and closed
his tired eyes. He knew - probably better than most - that
America was going to war. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the
American military had been scouring the globe for another
enemy and Saddam was their latest bogey man. There had of
course been Gaddafi before Saddam but the pre-emptive
bombing raid on Tripoli had led to nothing, much to the
chagrin of the Chiefs of Staff. Saddam was different. If
Gaddafi was a fox, Saddam was an ostrich, burying his head in
the sand and pretending that as long as he kept it there,
everything would turn out all right.
Capriotti sighed audibly. He knew what it was to behave
like an ostrich. Eleven years earlier, he had ignored all the signs
and had hoped his wife would understand the importance of
his job. She had given him an ultimatum: spend more time
with the family or lose them. He had promised to do better
but ten days later had been on a plane flying to another hot
spot. On his return, he had found an empty house. Within six
months they were divorced. Susan had moved to Houston and

14
twelve months later was married to an oilman. He was several
years older than Capriotti and many times richer.
"Would you mind if I joined you?" a lilting voice asked.
Capriotti turned to see a young, auburn haired woman leaning
over him. He smiled and quickly pulled the papers,
headphones and other airline paraphernalia off the empty seat.
She squeezed past him and as she did her fragrance wafted
under his nostrils.
"Catherine Whitlock," she breathed huskily. "And you're
John Capriotti, the Chronicle’s foreign correspondent." He
smiled again in acknowledgement. "Sorry, I’m with Reuters in
Moscow," she added, holding out her hand. He shook it,
impressed by her striking good looks and the forthrightness of
her approach.
"Your reputation precedes you, Miss Whitlock, a mutual
friend speaks very highly of you."
"He wouldn’t be old, fat and rather grumpy?"
"The very same."
"Dan’s meeting me at Heathrow. I’m spending several days
there before flying on to Moscow. He’s covering the Peace
conference."
"Seems you got the better deal; how’d you manage to swing
that?"
"Friends in high places," she replied, a knowing smile
crossing her face.
They chatted amiably until the meal arrived and with it a
bottle of Chardonnay. As they ate, he learned that she was
nearly thirty, single and wanted to go all the way to the top.
He told her about his teenage years in the Bronx and his close
shave with crime, the Mafia and too many bar fights.
"You should definitely feel at home in Moscow," she
commented as the stewardess poured their coffee. "The
Russian Mafia’s everywhere and runs most of the hookers that
hang around the better hotels."
"You obviously think I’m pretty desperate."
"Aren’t most men?" Capriotti ignored the comment,

15
preferring instead to studiously unwrap the dark chocolate on
his tray. "How did you get into the newspaper game?" she
asked, moving back onto more solid ground.
"My Sicilian grandfather decided I should move to Dallas,
rather than hang around New York with him and the ‘Family’."
"Sicilian as in Giovanni Capriotti?" she said, arching a
sculptured eyebrow.
"Local crime boss and all 'round good guy," he chuckled.
"He had a younger sister in Dallas who was married to the
Tribune's accountant. He found me a job in the mail room."
"And?"
"There’s not much to tell. Several months later I asked the
sub editor for a job as a reporter and he laughed me out of the
office. Apparently, my great-aunt heard about it and called her
big brother in New York. A few days later, or so the story goes,
the sub-editor was interrupted at home during dinner. The
man doing the interrupting was built like a bull elephant, the
conversation short and very much to the point. The following
morning, a rather contrite sub-editor offered me the position
as the Tribune's trainee reporter."
"It would seem I’m not the only one with friends in high
places," she said, an ironic tilt to her voice. "It must have been
pretty cool having a Mafia don on your side?"
"Sometimes," he agreed.
The stewardess removed the trays. Catherine pulled out the
small television screen from the seat arm and began flicking
through the channels. Capriotti closed his eyes and thought
back to his early days on the Dallas Tribune.
For his first year, he had covered the courts with a time-
served reporter called Jimmy Delaney. The old-timer had
noted the promise in the young New Yorker, teaching him
how to dig beneath the banal to find the meat in a story and
later introducing him to the underworld element that
continually moved through the revolving courtroom doors. It
was Delaney who had gripped him by the arm as they watched
Walter Cronkite announce the death of John Fitzgerald

16
Kennedy; Delaney who downed his Jack Daniels in the Irish
bar off Main Street and cursed the ‘Protestant bastards’ who
had assassinated his President.
Capriotti was still smiling at the memory as he called over
the stewardess, asked her to bring him a large J.D. and then
leaned back as Catherine Whitlock looked up from the screen
and ordered a malt. Once the drinks arrived, he took a long
pull before carefully placing the glass on the tray. "I suppose
you’re too young to remember much about JFK?" he mused,
his mind still back in the Irish bar with Jimmy Delaney.
"I was two when he was assassinated," she replied,
obviously surprised by the question, "although, I recall the
effect his death had on my parents."
"An only child?"
"I had an older brother, he would probably be about your
age, perhaps a bit younger; he was killed in Vietnam, a month
before the withdrawal."
"I’m sorry."
"It was a long time ago." She took another sip of her malt.
"Were you in Dallas when Kennedy was shot?"
He nodded. "Me and an old hack called Delaney. He knew
Jack Ruby from the bad old days and his connection with the
anti-Castro movement. The man hated Kennedy and blamed
him for the Bay of Pigs fiasco."
"So, you’re one of those who believes in the conspiracy
theory," she said, a mocking glint in her jade-green eyes.
Capriotti drained the glass. The stewardess was by his side
before it was back on the tray. She refilled it and then tactfully
left the half-full bottle. "Delaney certainly did," he finally
answered, remembering back to the funeral and the cold day
they had buried his friend.
Jimmy had been walking to his car after a longer than usual
session in the Irish bar. Capriotti had been working late at the
office. An old tramp had been the only witness. The car was
black, fast and never stopped. Jimmy, like Kennedy, had been
pronounced DOA at Accident and Emergency.

17
 Standing over the open grave, Capriotti had cried for the
first time since grade school. Neither the car nor the driver was
ever found. ‘Hit and run’ the cops had said. Happens all the
time. Probably another drunk on his way home. Jimmy’s wife
had been inconsolable. They had no kids, only each other.
They drank in companionable silence for several minutes.
Most of the people around them were settling down to sleep,
although a few of the business die-hards were making sure that
their company got its money's worth from the free bar service.
"Married?" Catherine asked.
"A long time ago."
She seemed to sense the coolness of his response.
"Acrimonious?"
"You could say that, although to be fair it was pretty neat
early on. I guess things began going downhill after Delaney
died and I took over his patch. It wasn’t long before I was sent
to Saigon and thereafter began a love affair with politics, war
and the futility of both. By the time I got back I’d a daughter,
a mortgage and a cynicism that was bigger than both."
Catherine Whitlock smiled sympathetically.
"The following year, the Chronicle offered me more money
and the chance of a syndicated column. I guess Susan hoped
I’d be able to spend more time at home with her and the kids."
He paused, thinking back. "My little girl was around five
when I began to cover the El Salvador conflict." He hesitated
again, the memories now in full flood. "Whilst down there
sweating it out in the jungle, my darling wife decided to pack
the furniture and kids into a U-haul trailer and move south to
Houston. That was over ten years ago and we’ve barely spoken
a civil word since."
"And you’ve never re-married?"
"Why do I get the feeling you’d be better with the Enquirer
than Reuters?"
She hit him with the blue pillow and exaggerated pique.
"I’m just surprised you haven’t found someone else."
"I’m not saying I took a vow of celibacy," Capriotti said,

18
thinking of Carla Anderson and how much she had once
looked like the woman now sitting beside him. Carla had been
an energetic lobbyist with her own D.C. apartment. She was
young, flamboyant and available but Capriotti soon
discovered that he was simply one of many who had passed
through her bedroom and across her fashionable silk sheets.
The smile crossed his lips again. They had met up several
months earlier at one of Washington’s numerous political
cocktail parties. Carla, now married to a West Coast Senator,
had looked tanned, older, and not quite as flamboyant as he
remembered. Their eyes had met across the crowded room; her
coy smile speaking volumes. Capriotti had felt sure that same
little smile had passed between Carla and another half dozen
men in the room.
He turned his head and glanced across at Catherine
Whitlock. Her eyes were half closed; his gaze sliding from her
face and down onto a well-filled silk blouse. The top two
buttons were undone. He sighed and consciously pulled his
eyes away.
"And they’re all mine," she murmured contentedly, pulling
the blanket up around her shoulders. Capriotti shivered. The
plane’s heating had been turned down as one by one its
passengers fell asleep over the North Atlantic. He pulled his
own blanket up as Catherine Whitlock again murmured
sleepily and placed her head on his shoulder. He lifted his arm
and let her snuggle in closer. She really was a stunning woman.
The steady hum of the four Pratt and Whitney engines
eventually lulled him off into an uneasy sleep and the dream
that had plagued him for ten years.

19
Friday, November 23rd

L ondon’s Heathrow airport was predictably busy and he had

said goodbye to Catherine at passport control. She had
given him her number and suggested she might show him
Moscow. He had been surprised by the soft, lingering kiss.
Capriotti now wished he had taken heed of the airhostess’
arched eyebrow and avoided the J.D.. His mouth felt and
tasted dry, his whole body ached. He followed the signs for the
Terminal Four showers and showed his boarding pass to the
attendant who gave him a key and pointed towards the small
cubicle. He stripped off and turned on the power shower.
Stepping under the hot stream, he soaped himself and then
shaved, wondering idly if the management would notice the
loss of one white fluffy towel. He knew all too well that the
Moscow hotel would provide no such luxury. Once freshened
and reinvigorated, he wrapped the towel around his middle,
gulped from a bottle of mouthwash, gargled and then spat into
the sink. Rubbing the steam from the mirror, he checked his
reflection; unhappy, as ever, with what he saw.
The last ten years had been tough, thanks mainly to far too
much J.D. and self-absorption. His career was going nowhere,
the Chronicle sticking with him for the brief flashes of
brilliance that escaped from behind the late night binges and
soul-destroying periods of depression. They had warned him;
told him he was losing it, offered to put him in a clinic.
The sullen, angry face in the mirror glowered back at him;
he was a master of self-delusion. His mother had once told
him he was lucky to have come from good Sicilian stock, and
she was probably right. Four months short of fifty and his hair
still had little grey, his Mediterranean genes hiding the ravages
of a decade of booze and lost nights, his height helping to
mask the drink-induced paunch. His upper body was still
muscled and firm but Capriotti knew the truth - and hated it.

20
He smeared the image with wet fingers and turned away in
disgust. Not that it mattered, he had already pressed the self-
destruct button and was in free-fall, the Moscow trip his last
chance to prove he could still cut the mustard. The assistant
editor had been very succinct, 'Screw this one up, John, and
I'll have your ass.'
He pulled fresh underwear from his overnight case and
then dressed. The adjacent breakfast room was half full and he
found a table over by the window. Leaving his briefcase on the
chair, he grabbed a tray, mentally cursing the English and their
inability to produce or serve real orange juice.
Returning to his seat, he spread a hot croissant with butter
and honey, took a bite and looked over to the next table, only
to stare in disbelief at the front page of The Times. The
headline screamed out in bold print: ‘Thatcher Forced to
Resign.‘ Capriotti rose, picked up his case and walked quickly
across the terminal to WH Smith. He searched the racks and
picked up several of the broadsheets.
"Cappy!" a voice boomed from the other side of the shop.
Capriotti visibly winced, looked up and then allowed a broad
smile to cross his lips. The large form of Dan Daniels was
striding towards him, arm outstretched. He grabbed Capriotti’s
hand and pumped it vigorously. "What brings you to
London?" the big man said, pulling his embarrassed friend into
a bear hug. Catherine Whitlock was standing behind him.
Capriotti extricated himself and handed some money to the
counter assistant. "Moscow."
"BA flight?"
"Yeah."
"What’s the Chronicle know that we don’t?" Daniels said,
his voice laced with an exaggerated tone of suspicion. "Seen
the news? Thatcher’s gone."
"So it would seem. The Times thinks Major’s already had
the nod."
"Trust the Brits to get rid of the most popular PM since
Churchill," Catherine said.

21
 Daniels looked over at her and then back to Capriotti. "I
hear you two had a cosy flight; how about we grab a coffee and
go over the details?"
"Sorry, I need to run," Catherine said. "But maybe we’ll
bump into each other in Moscow?" She smiled towards
Capriotti.
"I’d like that," he replied, meaning it.
He waited until she disappeared into the crowd before
following Daniels' large bulk through the lost and wandering
flotsam that made up airport lounges the world over. Dan
Daniels was the embodiment of Reuters and, as far as Capriotti
knew, no one had yet discovered what his first name was. The
story went that he had a stutter as a young kid and, on his first
day at school, the teacher had asked his name. From then on,
he had been known as Dan Daniels.
Capriotti had met the great man in Vietnam and their
paths had regularly crossed over the intervening twenty years.
Dan was a Reuters’ man to his core, had never worked for
anyone else and, as far as he was concerned, never would. He
was not as tall as Capriotti but what he lacked in height he
more than made up for in mass. The New Yorker was no
lightweight but Daniels must have outweighed him by sixty or
seventy pounds. The big man ordered two coffees and asked
his friend if he wanted a Danish pastry, Capriotti declining
and then watching as he ordered two for himself. They found
a vacated table, the younger man clearing away the discarded
cups before sitting down.
"You two seemed to be hitting it off?" Daniels smirked.
"Mind you, I wouldn’t complain about a few rounds with the
delectable Miss Whitlock!"
"Don't go drawing any snide inferences."
Daniels snorted, but said nothing, watching from the
corner of his eye as his friend lit a cigarette. "Spoken with
Baker recently?"
"Have you?" Capriotti exhaled, initiating the game they
had been playing for twenty plus years.

22
 "In Saudi, last week. The man’s going to burn out, he’s too
old for this game."
"You’ve got five years on him," Capriotti said, wondering
just how old Dan Daniels actually was.
The Reuters’ man ignored the jibe. "He had a meeting with
King Fahd; they’ve agreed that joint command of any offensive
operation remains with the good guys."
"Just making sure Schwarzkopf shoulders the blame if the
shit hits the fan."
"No different from ‘Nam’ then," Daniels said bitterly,
raising the coffee cup to his lips and slurping noisily.
"Maybe," Capriotti mused. Stormin' Norman had been a
hard-nosed Colonel during the last years of the Vietnam War.
He had a reputation for telling it as it was, not as the politicos
wanted to hear. "God help them if they try to get him involved
in the political game," Capriotti said, remembering all too well
the American General’s fiery temper. "Do you think Aziz can
break up the coalition?"
"No chance. Most of them know which side their bread’s
buttered. Mubarak’s bending over backwards to help us. Baker
thinks we’ll be fine as long as Syria and Israel stay on the side-
lines."
Capriotti's attention was drawn to a lithe blonde, her skirt
too short, her long legs gliding past their table. "It’s up to the
Russians then," he said, continuing to watch as firm thighs
moved effortlessly across the restaurant.
"Still single, eh?"
"Still married?"
Daniels chuckled as he bit into his second Danish pastry. "I
continue to share my pay cheque with Betty, if that’s what you
mean." He brushed the crumbs off his waistcoat and drained
his coffee cup. "Gorbachev’s under a lot of pressure. I don't
hold out much hope for his peace plan."
"Me neither, we’ve already gone too far. They’re not going
to pull the troops out of Saudi without firing a shot."
"My thoughts," Daniels replied, a tinge of sadness in his

23
voice. "How's that son of yours? He must be in his mid
twenties by now."
"Last I heard, he was working for his mother’s deadbeat
husband."
"Still bitter?"
"I guess; old habits and all that." He hesitated, it was over
ten years since the accident but it still hurt like it was yesterday
and this was not the time nor the place to rekindle the details.
"What about your brood?"
"Taking over the world. I’ve lost count of how many
grandkids we have now. It was eight or nine at the last
gathering."
"And you’re still working out of Geneva?"
"Mostly. Reuters threatened to move me down to Singapore
last year but I pulled rank. Betty’s getting itchy feet; most of
the kids are back Stateside and she’s keen to move home to
Boston and settle down. What about you? Still banging heads
with Mike Jarvis?"
Capriotti snorted with disgust at the mention of his deputy
editor's name. "My guess is he sent me here hoping I would
fall flat on my face. Maybe I'll apply for your job, now that
Betty's lined Granddad up for diaper duty."
"In your dreams, Cappy lad." Daniels laughed, gathering
up his case and squeezing an ample body out of the chair. "You
booked anywhere special?"
"Intourist Hotel."
"Me too, worse luck."
The two men ambled towards the departure gate. Daniels
was wearing a three-piece-suit, white shirt and tie; Capriotti
had on slacks, an old jacket, plaid shirt and loafers. The
difference between single and married, he thought as they
showed their boarding passes to the girl on the gate. They
parted inside the plane’s forward door. Forty years with Reuters
meant his old friend flew everywhere in First. He doubted
whether the Chronicle would ever allow him to travel that close
to the pilot.

24
 Capriotti was looking forward to revisiting the ‘new’ Moscow;
the last time had been under the Reagan administration. The so-
called ‘evil empire’ had begun to disintegrate and he was keen to
see what had taken its place. He had interviewed Gorbachev
during the summit in Iceland and genuinely respected the man.
It had taken a realist and seventy years of pain and poverty to
own up to the fact that communism did not and would not
work. He was not so sure about Yeltsin though; he might well be
the elected parliamentary leader but there was something
worrying about a man who seemed permanently linked to a
bottle of vodka. Then again, one of Capriotti’s own colleagues
had suggested a similar link between him and Mr Jack Daniels,
the New Yorker retorting that more often than not alcohol
dependency was the common denominator between journalist,
politician and a damn good story.
The 747 whined as it climbed into the cold air above
London, turned north over the Thames and then set course for
the Russian capital. The five-hour flight included lunch, a film
and another chance to review his notes. The Chronicle was one
of those rare Southern papers that believed its readers should
be kept abreast of affairs outside the United States. Over the
years, Capriotti had come to realise that his fellow citizens
were more concerned with events in the next parish, rather
than in a neighbouring country. He doubted whether a typical
Texan kid could find Kansas on the map, let alone half the
countries he had visited over the years.
Most Americans regarded the Middle East as a big beach
populated by oil rich rag-heads; Europe was a conurbation of
strange people speaking even stranger languages. Asia was
simply the land of the ‘gooks’. Most people had heard of Great
Britain but only because the National Enquirer carried regular
pictures of Princess Diana. Capriotti sighed. Catherine
Whitlock was right; Britain had lost the only other woman
who had a global presence. Now that Thatcher was gone, he
wondered whether Baker’s comment about Bush might
suddenly take on a deeper meaning.

25
 He respected the President even though, like Carter, the
man had little natural charisma and even less in the way of
leadership qualities. They had first met several months after
Bush was appointed Director of the CIA, Capriotti following
up on a story in El Salvador that focussed on the ‘Firm’s’
continuing support for the anti-communist freedom fighters.
It had always amused the journalist that if you fought against
communism you were labelled a heroic freedom fighter; go up
against capitalism and you suddenly became a murdering
terrorist. Both groups carried guns; both groups tortured and
killed the innocent to fulfil their demands. Bush had smiled
when Capriotti had brought the subject up in the large oak-
panelled office in Langley. They had spoken off the record and
the CIA’s Director had told him that it was perhaps the
difference between truth and politics.
The man was now President and in command of the most
powerful force the world had ever seen. The Russians had
imploded and Capriotti was concerned about the balance of
power and what his country might do with their newly- found
omnipotence. With hegemony came responsibility, and
Capriotti doubted whether the American people appreciated
the awesome power given to the inner sanctum of un-elected
men who really ran their country. Worse still, he wondered if
they cared.
The country had changed after Kennedy. Johnson had
dragged them deeper and deeper into the mire of Vietnam and
fifteen years after the ignominious withdrawal they were still
paying the psychological cost. The world's number one
democracy was as divided and as racist as ever. Martin Luther
King might well have pulled them kicking and screaming into
the twentieth century but by then it was sixty-five years too
late. Even now, the South barely paid lip service to equal
rights. True, they no longer recognised apartheid and
segregation, but it was never far away from the surface.
Capriotti had seen it with his own eyes in Houston, Dallas,
and L.A.; it was rife in most, if not all the major US cities.

26
America, far from being a classless society, had its own
underclass and was a country of haves and have-nots. As
Delaney had once commented, Camelot and the American
dream had died with Kennedy and the onset of the Asian
conflict.
He checked his notes. Baker was due in Moscow the day
after tomorrow to meet with Gorbachev and Thatcher. With
Thatcher now gone, he wondered whether John Major would
attend. The world was definitely changing and Capriotti could
not imagine Khrushchev, Gromyko and Kennedy ever having
a cosy tête à tête over the problems in Berlin or Cuba.
His lunch arrived and with it, the West’s continuing view of
Russia. Caviar was served with cheap champagne. He ate
hungrily, wondering whether Dan Daniels was tucking into
sturgeon. He passed on the wine and instead drank mineral
water; he knew his body and the recovery time needed after
half a bottle of J.D. Lunch finished, he snoozed, the dream
remaining trapped in the black recesses.
It was dark when he stirred, the changing air pressure
bothering his eardrums and telling him the plane was
beginning to descend. The seat belt sign illuminated and with
it came the co-pilot’s voice informing them they would be on
the ground in fifteen minutes. Capriotti got up and visited the
toilet. Twenty minutes later the plane was on the wet tarmac
and taxiing towards the main terminal at Sheremetevo-2. He
squinted through the dirty window at the falling snow that
befitted a late November afternoon in the Russian capital. The
functional grey buildings looked just as drab and foreboding
as he remembered and he wondered whether the new Russia
would impress him any more than the old one had.
***
Daniels and Capriotti shared a cab from the airport into the
city centre. The older man’s suitcase had been left at
Heathrow, the BA representative less than helpful and giving
the disgruntled reporter a small bag that contained a tee shirt,

27
a wash kit and a pair of socks. He had pulled out the tee shirt
and held it up against his wide chest, the girl accepting that
perhaps it might not fit him. She promised to have his bag sent
over to the Intourist as soon as it turned up, adding that the
next flight wouldn’t arrive until the following day.
The cab was cold, slow and reeked of stale sweat and cheap
tobacco, the wipers seeming reluctant to clear the falling snow
from the windscreen. The driver spoke little English and
appeared determined not to break any speeding regulations
during the twenty-eight kilometre ride. They passed Red
Square and the imposing parliament buildings, the Kremlin
looming out of the darkness, its Tsarist towers and spires for
ever out of step with the old communist ethos.
The Intourist Hotel was situated off Manezhnaya
Ploshchad and, although it was within sight of Red Square,
was nothing more than an upmarket hostel. The functional,
drab building that bore the euphemistic name would have
shamed a YMCA in Harlem, the young receptionist telling
them that the hotel had just been upgraded. Capriotti signed
in and proffered his Amex card, the girl assuring them that the
hotel staff would endeavour to meet all their needs. Capriotti
gave his bag to the bellhop and called over to Daniels,
suggesting they should meet later in the bar. The older man, a
fistful of dollars in his hand, had already cornered the
concierge and was trying to persuade the confused employee
to find him a shop that sold extra large shirts. He was still
negotiating as the doors clanged shut and the antiquated
elevator began to climb laboriously to the fifth floor.
Capriotti’s suite was big, threadbare and cold, the cast-iron
radiator beneath the window sill failing to take the chill off the
high-ceilinged room. The bed frame was solid wood with a
thin mattress, grey sheets and even thinner blankets. A cursory
inspection of the bathroom didn't do much to warm him up,
the toilet looked functional, as did the large yellow-stained
bath and its chrome taps. He unpacked his bag and placed the
Terminal Four fluffy towel over the cold towel rail. The room

28
had a seventies looking television set and a phone with an old
style dial. He knew the line would be bugged; old habits, like
old regimes, take time to die.
***
The windowless room at the end of a long corridor deep in the
bowels of the CIA building in Washington was reserved for
two thirty that same afternoon. Although thousands of people
worked in Langley only a select few knew of the existence of
the basement complex. This afternoon’s meeting had been
hastily arranged, several of the attending men no longer
working directly for the Firm. At one end of the room was a
projection booth, at the other end a white screen hung limply
from the wall. Six chairs had been placed in front of the screen.
The President’s National Security Advisor, was the last to
arrive. "I trust this is going to be worth my while," Brent
Scowcroft said as he lowered his frame into the empty chair
beside the CIA’s Deputy Director. "The President has called
the Chiefs of Staff to a strategy meeting and I need to be back
over at the White House before six."
The Deputy Director waved his hand towards the
projectionist behind the glass. "We’d better get started, then."
The lights dimmed and the white screen was suddenly
bathed in light. The six men sat in silence. The film was nearly
two hours in length and no one spoke until the main lights
came on and the credits rolled over the screen.
"Interesting," Scowcroft commented.
"Goddamn traitor," a man directly behind him snarled.
The venom in the man's voice surprised Scowcroft. "How
much of this is fact?"
"Not much," the Deputy Director sighed, lighting another
cigarette. "It’s due for general release in three months. The
conspiracy nuts are going to have a field day."
"Why don't we just ban it?" the grey haired man snapped,
getting up from his chair.
The Deputy Director exhaled noisily and then stubbed out

29
the cigarette, as if suddenly remembering he was trying to give
up. "Easy Bill, try and ban this and we give them something
to get their teeth into. And anyway, why ban something that’s
fictional?"
"Can’t we put pressure on the distributors?"
Scowcroft was still not sure why he had been asked to the
screening, although the President must have thought it
important. Bush had personally asked him to attend.
"Stone’s a loose cannon. Put pressure on him and he’ll go
straight to the media." The Deputy Director sighed again.
"We’ve got three months; I need you to give the situation some
thought and get back to me by the end of December. I want
to make damn sure we can deflect any of the claims made in
the film."
"It’s nearly thirty years ago, for Christ sakes," Scowcroft
fumed, the frustration evident in his voice.
The CIA man looked at the President's Security Advisor
with ill-disguised distaste. "Maybe so, but the film’s name is
enough to stir up a hornet’s nest; I’ll want you to keep the
President informed."
Scowcroft stood up, stretched and moved towards the door.
"I really think the President’s got enough on his mind right
now without worrying about this piece of celluloid fantasy."
"I’m sure he does, but Saddam’s going to be the least of his
worries if we let this get out of hand."
Scowcroft frowned. The old men sitting around the room
seemed to be worrying about nothing. He had seen a few of
Oliver Stone’s other films and saw little need to worry the
President over this one. He closed the door and strode along
the corridor to the secure elevator. The Deputy Director
remained seated. The grey haired man called Bill got up and
crossed to the door. "Mark my words," he said, picking his
raincoat off the table, "this could just be the tip of the iceberg."
The Deputy Director turned in the chair and looked
directly at his subordinate. "I want you to bring in Frank
Harvey."

30
 Bill Reisberg nodded his agreement and, for the first time
that afternoon, began to feel a little better.
***
Brent Scowcroft waited until the end of the cabinet meeting
before approaching the President. George Bush looked tired.
He was up for re-election in a little under two years and the
last thing he wanted was another Vietnam on his hands. He
listened intently as his National Security Advisor went over the
main points of the film and then reconfirmed he wanted him
to maintain close contact with the CIA’s Deputy Director.
Scowcroft nodded his agreement, even though he was still not
really sure why the President of the United States had an
interest in this particular Hollywood film.
As he drove home to his wife and their downtown
apartment, he thought back to where he had been when the
news had broken that JFK was dead.
***
"One for the road?" the older journalist said, waving over the
waiter. Capriotti nodded as he drained his glass. He was
drinking Johnny Walker red label, the Intourist not stocking
his favoured J.D.
"How long are you planning to stay?" he asked, as the
waiter picked the two empty glasses off the table and took
their order.
"Depends on the outcome. My guess is that they’ll put
things off until the scheduled meeting in Geneva. Nothing’s
going to be agreed until there’s full clearance from the Security
Council, and we both know how long that could take."
"You think Gorbachev will use the veto?"
"Doubtful. Bush is bound to play the ‘you scratch my back,
we’ll scratch yours’ card. Everyone knows the Russians are
going to need financial help over the coming months.
Without it, Gorbachev could fall and the US definitely won’t
want that to happen. My guess is the Russians will toe the line

31
and this meeting’s nothing more than window dressing for
their old Arab allies."
The waiter returned and placed two glasses on the table.
Capriotti studied him. He looked in his late twenties, tall and
athletic. Neither American spoke until he had wiped the
tabletop and returned to the bar.
"KGB?" Daniels murmured, taking a long sip from his
glass.
"It’s either that or the Russian boxing team are
moonlighting as waiters."
Daniels chuckled out loud. "He sure looks like he could
handle himself."
"Listen," Capriotti said, pushing back his chair and
standing up, "I’m going to take tomorrow off and do the
tourist bit. How about sharing the ride?"
"Sorry, Reuters have got me doing some CNN programme
for the early morning news." He drained his glass and
struggled up from the table. They crossed the lobby and
waited for the elevator to descend from the top floor. "You’d
better keep out of those new strip clubs I’ve been hearing
about, rumour has it the girls are now charging the same as
back home."
"The beauty of free enterprise," Capriotti sneered, as the
doors opened and they stepped back to allow a young girl to
exit the elevator. "And anyway, that’s more a frustrated
married man’s pastime." Daniels smiled, despite himself, and
pressed the button for the third floor. As they reached it,
Capriotti wrinkled his nose and looked pointedly at his
friend's off-white shirt. "Did you manage to find a
replacement?"
"Sore point," he replied from behind the closing doors.
Capriotti unlocked his room and crossed to the phone.
Dialling down to reception, he asked if he could put a call
through to Houston and then waited as the young girl
connected him to the hotel exchange. It took a full five
minutes before he got through to the Chronicle and the foreign

32
desk. The deputy editor's PA was cool, her clipped, one-word
responses to his requests bordering on the rude. He told her
that he would find the business centre in the morning and fax
her daily with an update. He then read his copy over the line,
the girl asking him to spell each name twice, much to his
annoyance. Once she had read it back he asked if he could
speak with her boss, only to be told he was busy but that he
had asked her to reiterate his parting comments. The hairs on
the back of his neck rose as he listened to the sarcastic tone of
her voice and the unsaid implication that Mike Jarvis was
taking an almighty risk sending a drunk to cover the Moscow
summit.
After banging down the phone, he stripped to his
underwear and ran a bath. The water was steaming hot and he
soaped himself before sinking under the surface and letting the
warm water work its magic on his weary limbs.
The big haired bitch had wound him up and there was no
doubt she and Jarvis would have a good laugh at his expense,
probably over a few drinks after work and then again after
they’d screwed back at her apartment. The church-going Jarvis
was in his mid thirties, Texas A & M educated and married
with two children; his PA twenty something with nothing in
her favour but the tight skirts and breast hugging tops she
liked to wear. The jumped-up bible thumper was trying to get
him out and there was little if anything he could do to stop
him.
As the tension eased out of his body, his mind again
wandered back to Jimmy Delaney and the early days on the
Tribune.
His old mentor had once told him that you knew the time
had come to quit when the buzz, the adrenaline rush, was no
longer there. He smiled sadly. Jimmy would not have used the
words buzz, or rush, in this context. The world had changed
out of all recognition since that dark night in nineteen sixty-
four. Jimmy would be dead by now, even if he had survived the
hit and run. Over the years, Capriotti had occasionally visited

33
the grave in the small, grassy cemetery. It had taken him a long
time to get over Delaney's death, only later realising that the
old man had become a surrogate father figure. Jimmy was
fifty-seven when he died and had smoked like a chimney,
Capriotti consoling himself with the fact that he probably
wouldn’t have made it much past his sixty-fifth birthday; if not
the cigarettes, then the booze would have got him.
Jimmy’s wife had died six months later, Capriotti making a
special effort to attend the diminutive Rose Delaney’s funeral.
There were only seven other people at the graveside, the priest
commenting that she had died of a broken heart. This time,
he hadn’t cried as the coffin had been lowered into the dusty
red earth but had been surprised ten days later when a lawyer
called the Tribune and asked if he could come over to his small
office on the far side of town. Surprise had turned to
amazement when he learned that Rose had bequeathed her
and Jimmy’s house to Capriotti, the tears falling in
inconsolable torrents as he slowly walked back towards his
parked car.

34
Saturday, November 24th

D aniels strode into the small, austere looking dining room

that passed for the breakfast bar and squeezed between
the table and wall seat. "You’re up early."
"Too damn cold to sleep," Capriotti answered, his hands
clasped firmly around the coffee cup in front of him. "You’d
think the Russians would have learned how to keep warm."
"Of course they have." Daniels looked at the poor selection
of food laid out on the breakfast counter, finally choosing a
couple of slices of bread and a pot of jam. "I’ve a suspicion
they keep hotels cold to show us Yanks how tough they really
are. I bet their own homes are like saunas."
Capriotti smiled as his companion tried to spread the rock-
hard pat of butter onto the wafer thin slice of bread. "I guess
it must be the same with their diet?"
The waiter came over and filled his coffee cup. Daniels
asked if they could have a cooked breakfast, only to be told
that the chef did not come on duty for another hour. The old
journalist looked on in abject disgust as the man retreated to
the kitchen. "Same guy as last night," he muttered under his
breath as he took a bite of bread and jam. "Christ almighty,
this tastes more like turnip than strawberry."
"Wait until you try the coffee, I’ve an old Ford back home
that could run on the stuff."
"Looks like Major’s going to be the new British PM," Daniels
said, ignoring the well meant advice and trying to wash down
the bread and jam with the brown liquid. "The Brits are sending
Tom King over here to meet with Baker and Gorbachev."
"I told you, nothing’s going to be decided until after the
Security Council meeting."
Daniels nodded in agreement. "Latest off the wires is the
Joint Chiefs are meeting in D.C. this weekend to discuss the
hostage situation."

35
 "Saddam’s playing with fire; hang onto those passengers for
much longer and Bush will send in the Special Forces."
Daniels screwed up his face as he took another swig of foul-
tasting coffee. "I’m not so sure; what if he decides to spread
them around Iraq as cover for their more sensitive
installations?"
It was Capriotti’s turn to nod in agreement. "Won’t be the
first time, the VC did a lot of that during the carpet bombing
of the North."
They sat in silence for several minutes whilst Daniels
struggled with the remainder of his bread. He finally gave up,
took an orange off the counter and began peeling it with his
knife. "I read your piece last year on the MIAs; must have
pissed off a few people in Washington?"
"You could say that," Capriotti replied, wiping his mouth
with a paper napkin and dropping it on the tablecloth. "I guess
I got tired of hearing all that crap from Reagan and then Bush
about how they were actively looking for them. We both know
that any Grunt not returned by seventy-six was never coming
home. It was political panacea for the masses and someone had
to stick their head above the parapet and tell the truth."
"Rumour was, the Chronicle got its proverbial knuckles
rapped," Daniels added, looking over the rim of his half-moon
glasses.
"Usual Whitehouse bullshit; they pulled our pass for a
couple of weeks and the paper received several irate phone calls
from Bush insiders saying it was anti-American and I was
siding with the Commies. Of course, Jarvis threatened to fire
me, even though he’d sanctioned the piece before it went in!"
Daniels smiled. "Same kind of thing happened to us over
the Olly North thing and a CIA slush fund we discovered
running through one of the big banks in Zurich. The Post
picked it up off the wires and all hell broke loose. Reuters’
management were pulled in and told to back off or else. You’d
think by now they’d come up with something more original
than the same tired old lines?"

36
 "Originality of thought is definitely not an electoral
prerequisite and it’s perhaps time someone pointed out to these
power hungry jokers that we all exist on borrowed time. None
of us owns jack shit and, unless I’m badly mistaken, we haven’t
yet found a way of taking it with us when our time comes."
"Ouch!" Daniels exclaimed, surprised by the sudden
aggression from across the table. "What rattled your cage?"
Capriotti leaned back and lit a cigarette. "This Iraqi thing
smells like Cambodia and Pol Pot all over again. That sick
bastard murdered a million of his own men, women and
children and yet there was barely a murmur from our holier
than thou politicians. Saddam’s about to do the same thing,
only this time it’s the coalition who’ll be pulling the aerial
trigger. Do you really think he or anyone else will be that
surprised when we don't come charging over the top?"
"You think the coalition is wrong?"
"I don't remember there being a ground swell of emotion
to send a force out to protect the Cambodians. The only
difference between them and the Kuwaitis is they weren’t
sitting on a desert full of oil. It stinks and you know it."
"We can't change things," Daniels said, taken aback by the
bitterness of his friend’s tone
"That’s the whole point. We send back detailed reports on
mass annihilation and Joe Public turns over to the back pages.
He’d rather read about Montana’s busted arm than find out
what the government’s doing with his tax dollars. Never mind
watching CNN and finding out who’s buying Stinger missiles
from Oliver North, they’re happier tuning into thirty minutes
of Roseanne. I’m beginning to think we’re all wasting our
time."
"What’s the answer, give up reporting and let them get
away with even more impunity than they do already? Sure, we
maybe don't make that big a difference but it’s often the little
things that bring a politician to heel. We all knew Nixon was
a paranoid psychotic and yes, he might well have been a great
leader but he thought the rules were there for everyone but

37
himself. Just think, if Woodward and Bernstein had thought
like you, the crazy son of a bitch would have got away with it.
Let these politicians begin believing they’re God and before
long we won’t have a world worth worrying about."
Capriotti felt like he’d been verbally slapped. "You’re right,
I must have had a bad night or something. What time’s your
interview?"
"They’re sending a car over at nine. You still going to do the
tourist thing?"
"I’ll see if I can get hold of a rental; McDonalds are already
making profits in Gorbachev’s new Moscow, so Hertz and Avis
wont be far behind. Did you have any luck finding a new shirt?"
Shaking his head, Daniels pulled a small aerosol can out of
his jacket pocket. "Let’s hope those adverts are everything
they’re cracked up to be." Pushing back his chair, he sprayed
beneath his ample arms. "I’ll catch you later."
Capriotti watched his friend cross to the elevator before
turning his attention back to the table and the paper now lying
on the empty seat. He skimmed over the headlines but his
mind was elsewhere. He had slept badly and he was tired but
his sudden outburst was symptomatic of what he’d become.
Maybe it was just jet lag, he kidded himself as the waiter
returned and poured coffee into his stained cup. He grimaced.
Sure, jet lag was part of it but only because he was sober at the
moment and unable to avoid the dream and the debilitating
effect it had on him. No, Mike Jarvis was the problem at the
moment; late night Houston the closest that jumped-up little
hypocrite had ever been to a war zone. Capriotti sighed. The
old breed had gone, the Chronicle's staff replaced by pimple-
faced graduates, their gold framed MBAs hanging above
ornately carved desks, none of them with any idea how to post
a real story. Poor old Delaney would have turned in his grave.
***
If Saddam Hussein felt worried, he certainly wasn’t showing it.
Iraq’s despotic leader was sitting at the head of a large

38
mahogany table in the Presidential Palace, his two most
trusted aides on either side of him. Tariq Aziz, the Foreign
Minister, was on his right, General Saadi Tumah Abbas,
Commander of the Republican Guard, on his left. Abbas had
been hastily recalled from Iraq’s southern border with Kuwait
and, as usual when called to a meeting with Saddam, both
men were listening rather than talking. The Iraqi president was
preparing to invite CNN into the palace and prove to the
world that he was a benevolent leader. Aziz, a wily old
diplomat who had spent too many years trying to explain away
the mood swings that controlled Saddam’s erratic decision
process, had been less than enthusiastic about parading the
British Airways passengers in front of the cameras. He knew all
too well what effect the pictures would have on the West and
both he and Abbas had hoped they could persuade their
President to drop the idea, but it was becoming more obvious
by the minute that nothing would change Saddam’s mind.
"What do we know about Thatcher’s replacement?"
"Not very much," Aziz admitted, for once caught off guard
by the abruptness of the question. "No one could predict these
events, Excellency." He hesitated, wondering how to deflect
any blame. "Our people in London feel he may be more
willing to compromise now that Thatcher is gone. Without
the woman in charge, Bush might not have the same backbone
for war."
"Excellency," Abbas interrupted, much to Aziz’s relief. "The
infidels continue to amass a well-armed and mechanised force
over the Saudi border and it would be to our advantage if we
could make a pre-emptive strike."
Aziz held his breath. Abbas was a good General who had
spent eight years fighting the Iranians in the desert war. He
was right; their one advantage would be to hit the coalition
force before it had time to become properly organised. He also
knew the other man had risked much to speak his mind.
Saddam turned and stared long and hard at Abbas from
beneath dark hooded eyes. Both men feared and disliked the

39
Iraqi President. To even hint at the second emotion was
unthinkable. The words, when they came, were slow and
deliberate and laced with ill-disguised contempt. "You think
my army will be unable to repel the coalition force?"
"No Excellency," Abbas hastily replied, small beads of sweat
already beginning to form below his dark hairline. "Our forces
number nearly a million loyal men. The Americans will fall in
their thousands if they dare cross our lines. My thought was to
attack now and try to break up the coalition. It is an insult to
Allah and your Excellency that our Arab brothers have sided
with the infidels."
Saddam turned back to the bullet-proof windows, his eyes
suddenly far away. "They are weak and do not understand us.
We don't want war with the infidels but Kuwait and her oil
belongs to the mother country and in time they will come to
understand this."
"Perhaps the Russians will help negotiate a peaceful
solution," Aziz said softly, ensuring that he chose his words
with the utmost care.
"Do you seriously believe Gorbachev and the Politburo
support our cause?"
"They must be shown that we have a right to annex our
own province, Excellency." Aziz knew he was walking through
a verbal minefield. "I leave tonight for Moscow and a meeting
with both the Russians and the Americans."
Saddam turned and looked pointedly at his Foreign
Minister. "And what about the passengers?"
Aziz’s eyes fluttered across the table but Abbas was studying
his fingernails. "Perhaps if we show the world we’re not the
monsters portrayed by the American propaganda machine,
then the Russians and our loyal Arab brothers will offer more
help," Aziz finally said with as much tact as he could muster.
"The Russians are weak." The hatred in the man’s dark eyes
was self-evident. "The passengers will die before I bow to Bush
and the British imperialists. There will be no pre-emptive
strike, we will let the Americans fall on our land in their

40
thousands; Bush does not want another Vietnam. We will
draw the Jews into the war and then watch as the coalition
breaks up." He turned back to the window, dismissing them
with a casual wave of his hand. "Tell the Russians we have no
intention of withdrawing from our own province."
Aziz and Abbas rose from the table and bowed but, before
they could reach the tall doors and the outer sanctuary, the
Iraqi President spoke again in a soft, threatening voice. "I trust
I don't have to remind either one of you what failure will
mean to you and your families."
***
Capriotti sat in the back of the car and fumed. The hotel
receptionist had informed him earlier that it was still
impossible to rent a vehicle in Moscow and then tactfully
suggested he should perhaps use the hotel’s facilities, adding
that they could provide both driver and car. The car, when it
finally arrived, was an old Muscovitch dating from the early
seventies. Capriotti had not been surprised when the driver
turned out to be his breakfast waiter, the man smiling
engagingly and even holding open the back door for his
passenger. He told Capriotti his name was Sergei, that he had
studied English at the University and was now working at the
Intourist to help pay his way through school. Capriotti had
tried hard not to laugh out loud. Sergei was close to thirty and
probably more fluent in English than the American he was
driving. Nor had Capriotti missed the bulge under the jacket
as he’d conscientiously done up his seat belt; the man was so
obviously KGB that the journalist wondered why he bothered
to hide it.
They pulled out of the hotel entrance and Sergei asked his
passenger for instructions. Capriotti told him he wanted to see
the real Moscow. The driver looked perplexed. "The real
Moscow?"
"Take me down to the old sector, I want to get a feel for
what it’s like now that communism has been overthrown." As

41
he spoke, he watched the man’s eyes in the mirror. They didn’t
flinch. Sergei was better than he had first thought. The
Muscovitch was like a family tank on wheels, the engine alone
probably weighing as much as an American Compact, the
seats covered in thick ugly vinyl. Sergei was obviously having
trouble with the gearshift; either that or it was an earlier model
with no syncromesh.
He was thrown around as they negotiated a left-hand
corner that took them up onto the carriageway feeder road.
"Are you with the peace delegation?"
"Journalist," Capriotti said, knowing that Sergei would
have already seen a copy of his passport details and probably
the file the KGB kept on all foreign journalists.
"British?" The perfected innocence of the question made
Capriotti smile.
"American, actually."
Sergei followed his script to the letter. "One day I’d like to
go to America."
Capriotti was sure if he had been British, Segei’s dying wish
would have been to visit London. He sat in silence as the
Muscovitch crawled up to forty miles an hour. It was raining
and the wipers were struggling, Capriotti speculating whether
all Russian built cars had the same problem. Sergei followed
the carriageway for another five miles, the American looking
out on a mixture of architectural schizophrenia, the older
buildings magnificent, their newer counterparts functional
monstrosities. They passed low cost, utilitarian housing
complexes that loomed out of the grey sky. Uniformly tall and
rectangular, they were built with giant concrete slabs and
interconnected by rusting gangways that stretched for miles
along the route of the carriageway. Closer to the three-lane
road were reminders of the recent change from communism to
democracy. Huge stone statues marking the victories of the
USSR towered above the road signs, men on horses, men on
tanks, men with guns, women with hoes. Red graffiti had been
daubed across many of their bases and, although Capriotti

42
could not read Russian, he felt sure the new symbols were less
than complimentary. He idly wondered if democracy merely
meant the right to deface with impunity.
"We can come off at the next exit and go down to the
river," the driver said, watching Capriotti in the mirror.
"Go for it."
"Is there anything in particular you want to see, Mr
Capriotti?" Sergei's voice was non-committal but the inference
was obvious.
"Not really."
"Your name sounds Italian?"
"My grandfather originally came from Sicily. His parents
emigrated to New York at the turn of the century."
Sergei braked hard as an army truck pulled out directly in
front of them. He cursed in Russian and hit the horn;
Capriotti not surprised when it did not work. "The Army still
think they run the country," the driver said, indicating and
then swinging left onto the narrow off ramp.
Capriotti looked back at the olive green truck that
continued to rumble along the carriageway. "I thought they
did." The back flap was open and he could see uniformed
soldiers squatting on narrow wooden seats, their guns between
their legs. Sergei didn’t answer. He was negotiating a junction
and took a right under the carriageway before stopping at a set
of lights. Capriotti looked over at a road gang standing idly at
the side of a large pothole. The sorry looking group was made
up of both men and women, all wearing the same grey
coveralls and most with a wet cigarette dangling from their
lips. The rain was turning to sleet and he was glad he was
sitting in the car and not trying to fill holes in the road. They
turned left as the lights changed and drove along the Moskva
riverbank. The buildings looked older and more substantial
than their more modern counterparts along the carriageway.
Men were pulling wooden carts, women bartering with
market stall owners. "Is food still a problem?" Capriotti asked.
"During winter it can be." Their speed had slowed to five

43
miles per hour as he negotiated the congested thoroughfare.
"The last few years have been hard with a lot of it the fault of
black-marketeers. They hijack the food trucks coming in from
the farms and collectives and then sell it on at inflated prices."
"Are they organised?"
"Sometimes," Sergei replied hesitantly, Capriotti getting
the feeling that the driver had already said more than he
wanted to. They drove on in silence until they came to a wide,
open road. The slow-moving Moskva River was on their left
and looked dirty; decaying piles of discarded rubbish dotted
along its bank.
"Pull up over there on the right." Sergei braked hard and
steered towards the side of the road. "What’s down there?" The
American was pointing in the direction of several tall, run
down looking buildings.
Sergei's eyes narrowed as they followed the direction of
Capriotti’s arm. "Most of them are old warehouses, although
some have been converted into drinking clubs."
"Are they open?"
Sergei glanced at his watch. "Should be. During the day the
locals use them, at night they put on entertainment."
"Entertainment?"
"Girls, exotic dancers, prostitutes, that kind of thing."
"Let's take a look," Capriotti said, pulling up his coat collar.
Sergei switched off the car’s engine. "Do you speak
Russian?" Capriotti shook his head. "It’s pretty rough down
there, maybe I should come along?"
"Please yourself," Capriotti replied, knowing that he would
anyway. Sergei got out and locked the doors. They walked over
to a narrow opening, crossed an alley and moved down the
side of the buildings. They looked disused; the few windows
there were either boarded up with wood or blacked out.
"Doesn’t look like much is happening here?"
Sergei smiled, walked across to one of the wooden doors
and banged it with his fist; some of the peeling paint coming
away on his hand. They waited several seconds and then the

44
door swung outwards, a big bear of a man framed in the
opening. Sergei said a couple of words in Russian and the man
stepped back and allowed them to enter. There was a narrow
corridor and another door at the far end. As Sergei opened it,
they were suddenly assaulted by the smell of stale alcohol.
Wooden tables and chairs were scattered haphazardly around
a wide-open floor. At the far end of the room was a small stage
and, to the left, what passed for a bar area. It was surprisingly
dark but Capriotti could see well enough to pick out small
groups of people standing around the bar. Most of them were
old; all of them were men. As the two strangers crossed the
floor the conversation at the bar stopped. The barman moved
to the end of the wooden counter and asked what they
wanted. Sergei translated, adding that the choice was either
vodka or water. Capriotti ordered vodka, watching as the
barman took two dirty looking glasses off the shelf and filled
them from an unlabelled bottle. Sergei knocked his vodka
back in a single gulp. Capriotti took a sip and felt the raw
alcohol try to burn a hole in the back of his throat. He
coughed involuntarily. Sergei said something in Russian and
Capriotti caught the bastardised Americanski. The other men
at the bar laughed raucously. He closed his eyes and downed
the drink. Tears formed immediately. He choked again. He
could feel the burning sensation travelling down his gullet and
into his stomach. "What the hell is that?" he finally said,
pointing at the glass. "Rocket fuel?"
"Stolichnaya; real Russian vodka." Sergei laughed, ordering
two more shots. The second glass slid down more easily, as did
the third. By the fourth, Capriotti felt as though he could
converse in Russian. For most of the men in the room, it was
the first time they had seen, never mind met, an American and
Capriotti became an instant celebrity. His status was
confirmed when he ordered a round of drinks for the group
huddled around the bar. He paid with dollars, which seemed
to please the barman and, by the fifth drink, he was well on
the way to being drunk, his words slurred and becoming more

45
inaudible. His new friends were keen to learn English and he
taught them to say "Cheers." They in turn tried to teach him
the Russian equivalent but Capriotti was hopeless at languages
and failed completely to get the hang of the Russian syllables
and na zdarove.
An hour later he was slumped over one of the tables beside
the bar. It had crossed his mind that Sergei was getting him
drunk to ensure his journalistic abilities would be kept to a
minimum and at some point during the hazy afternoon he
noticed that the driver had consumed as much alcohol as he
had and was still standing. He had no idea how they were
going to get back to the hotel or how he was going to file his
report. He was now having trouble getting up from the table
and crossing to the small, filthy room outside that passed for a
toilet. Despite himself, Capriotti admitted that he quite liked
his breakfast waiter.
He avoided the next round of drinks and wondered if
anyone would notice if he took a nap. The large room was
beginning to fill up and Capriotti struggled down another
drink before sluggishly crossing to the bar and informing
Sergei that it might be a good idea if they got back to the
hotel. Supported by the driver, he waved good-bye to his
fellow drunks and lurched unceremoniously out to the car.
The cold air hit him like a knife. It was dark, the snow now
falling in earnest and, by the time they reached the hotel,
Capriotti was snoring loudly on the back seat of the car. Sergei
shook him awake and then helped him through the hotel
doors and into the elevator. The American thanked him and
then fumbled through his pockets until he found the room
key. He checked his watch; it was four thirty. The doors
opened on the fifth floor and he almost fell out of the elevator,
crashing into the wall and then using it as a support as he
moved unsteadily down the corridor to his room. It took
several tries before he got the door open and, throwing the key
at the chair, he flopped onto the bed.

46
 ***
The ringing bell became louder and more insistent as
Capriotti was pulled back to consciousness. The room was
cold and dark and it took several seconds before he
remembered who, let alone where, he was. He stretched over
and picked up the phone.
"Did you watch?"
"Watch what?" Capriotti mumbled, trying to get his dry,
swollen tongue to work properly.
"CNN."
"Missed it. What’s the time?"
"Nine thirty."
"Morning?"
"Evening!" Daniels chuckled. "Sounds like you had a liquid
lunch."
"Liquid afternoon," Capriotti corrected him. "Where are
you?"
"The lobby. I was planning to get some dinner and then hit
the town. Are you up to it?"
"I’m not sure. Give me half an hour. If I don’t appear, send
up a search party." He hung up the phone before Daniels
could answer. The room was freezing. He checked the radiator
beside the bed. It was on. Getting up, he moved through to
the bathroom and turned on the taps, checking his face in the
mirror. "You look like shit, Capriotti," he growled at the
bloodshot eyes and lined face staring back from the glass. He
stripped and then brushed his teeth. Steam filled the room.
The bath helped. He soaked for ten minutes and then towelled
himself off and dressed. Feeling as if his head had been shut in
a car door, he bent down, searched and then removed his
laptop from its holdall, plugged it in and began to type. He
managed a paragraph before giving up.
Daniels was in the dining room, nursing a drink. He smiled
as Capriotti struggled across the wooden floor. "You look like
shit," he said, as the younger man slumped into the vacant
chair.

47
 "Let me tell you, these looks are not deceiving. How was
the interview?"
"Much ado about nothing. They had some stuck-up Brit
journalist from the Telegraph and a Russian from Pravda who
toed the same tired old party line. They also linked us up with
some CNN asshole hiding out in downtown Baghdad; now
there's a guy going all out for his Pulitzer."
Capriotti smiled. "Professional jealousy?"
"Perhaps," he conceded, waving in the general direction of
the waiter and ordering a scotch. Capriotti declined, asking
instead for a glass of water. "Different guy," Daniels noted as
the man went back across to the small bar.
"I’m not surprised." He went on to explain the day’s events.
The waiter returned and placed the two drinks on the table,
Capriotti finishing his in a single pull and asking for another.
Daniels raised an eyebrow but said nothing; it had been a
long time since he had seen his friend drinking water. "It’s all
changed at this end. Tom King’s going back down to Saudi
with Major, so it now looks like the meeting here will be
between us, the Russians and Aziz. Someone should tell the
little snake that his form of limp hand diplomacy went out
with colouring books and crayons." He drained his drink.
"Are you up to hitting the town?"
"I need to file my report first. Why don't you eat whilst I
locate the business centre?"
"It’s on the third floor and you should find it particularly
scenic. I’ll wait for you and we can eat out on Reuters. There’s
surely got to be a better place than here!"
Capriotti went back up to the room and typed out a vague,
non-committal report about the city, the weather, the
proposed meeting and not much else. He hoped Daniels was
right about the personnel changes, knowing he would look a
rank amateur if his friend were wrong. It would also give Jarvis
the ammunition needed to put him on a plane and bring him
back to an ass chewing and a pink slip.
He printed off the one page sheet and then took the

48
elevator to the third floor. The business centre was nothing
more than a small room containing a fax, telex and photo-
copying machine. There was a tall, blonde-haired girl over in
the corner. She had her back to the door and was busy
photocopying something. Capriotti waited patiently until she
turned and walked back across the room to the small counter.
He smiled, wishing he’d taken more care with his appearance
and suddenly realising what Daniels had meant by 'scenic’.
The girl in front of him was in her late twenties with mid-
length hair that curled suggestively around slim shoulders. She
was wearing a white blouse, tight black skirt and no make-up,
but this seemed to enhance rather than detract from her
natural good looks. Capriotti placed the piece of paper on the
counter and tried hard to avoid staring. The plastic tag on her
blouse told him her name was Natasha, his eyes lingering a
second too long as they took in the curve and form of her
breasts.
"Can I help you?" the young woman asked in faultless
English.
"I hope so, I’d like to send a fax to my office in Houston."
"Would you like me to charge it to your room?" Capriotti
nodded and handed over the single page. She checked a loose-
leaf book of prices and then wrote out a receipt. "You’re a
journalist?"
"For the Houston Chronicle. I’m covering the meeting
between your President, ourselves and the Iraqis."
"Really? Do you think anything will come out of it?"
"Doubtful, but who knows? Stranger things have
happened."
"Well let’s hope so." Natasha smiled again. "Is there
anything else?" Capriotti tried to think of something but his
mind had gone blank. He realised that he was staring again.
"No, sorry, that’s all. Do you work here?"
The girl continued to smile. "Six days a week."
"Fine, I’ll probably see you tomorrow then. Thanks now."
He walked down the hall towards the elevators, suddenly

49
feeling like an adolescent who had bumped headlong into a
teacher he had a crush on. Daniels was waiting for him in the
lobby and rose from the padded chair as the elevator doors
opened. "Well, did she impress you?"
"She’d make an impression on a slab of ice," he replied,
waiting for the receptionist to finish her phone call. They
asked her to order a cab and then moved towards the front
door. "Where to?"
"You’re the tourist."
"Tell you what, let's go eat first and then I'll introduce you
to the Russian equivalent of rocket fuel."
***
Frank Harvey sat alone in his small two-bedroom apartment.
Harvey was not his real name. He could not remember the last
time he had used or been addressed by his given name. The
coded call had unnerved him. The other man had been evasive
but, and as always, it brought back the memories, the faces.
Twenty-seven pain-filled years. They would never be allowed
to forget that bloody day. How many times had he gone over
the events in his head? How many times had he woken up
during the night, covered in sweat, gasping for breath? His
wife had left him. His friends and colleagues had slowly
disappeared. What had he done that was so wrong? The
Agency had pulled him in, explained the situation and given
him his orders. He had never questioned the rights or wrongs
of the job. He had scoured the records to find a fanatic who
would fit the media stereotypes, finally picking Oswald as the
patsy.
Brown had done his job too. The head shot from the Book
Depository had been fractionally low, but he had avoided
hitting Jackie and still ripped open the man’s skull. Brown was
lucky. Lucky he’d been killed in Cambodia during the
Agency’s clandestine insurgence. Lucky he had not had to live
with the knowledge of what they had done. Lucky that his life
hadn’t been blighted for three God-awful decades. Lucky he

50
didn’t have to listen and watch as each passing year spawned
ever more outlandish and bizarre conspiracy theories. Lucky
old Brown.
He had never known the man’s real name. They had met
four weeks before the hit, Brown having flown in from Europe
after the Agency told him they wanted a backup. He snorted
in disgust at the memory. It was field agent Frank Harvey who
had planned the operation, found Oswald, checked his past,
liaised with the Agency’s Moscow section, planned the hit.
Damn them all; it had been twenty-seven years of living hell
and he wanted to shout out that he was there, that he knew
the truth, that he was the man who had pulled the trigger.
Frank Harvey sat alone and pondered. He had done
nothing wrong, at least on that particular day. It was later,
much later, when things began to spiral out of control. The
Agency’s orders to follow up and ensure nothing ever became
public. They had given him a free rein and, for almost four
years, he had stayed in small apartments, apartments like the
one he was now living in, waiting for a call. It was always the
same: first, the coded phone message, then, the time and
meeting place and finally the package. How many had he
terminated? Fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, he had lost count.
Accidents, they all had to look like accidents.
And then the nights: the nights when the faces would
come. Faces, dislocated and out of sequence, faces with staring
eyes and wide-open mouths. Some of them had begged, their
eyes pleading with him; others had just stood there and
waited, frozen by the inevitability of it all. The Mick journalist
and that wife of his were the worst and still seemed to reach
into his very soul. He remembered the man standing there,
not moving, glaring into the headlights, and then he was gone,
the body bouncing off the hood and under the back wheels.
That damn journalist, probing, always asking questions,
always compiling files, keeping secret records. And then the
widow: waiting, watching, seeing her leave, searching her
house and then, after all his care and planning, getting caught.

51
Stupid, stupid bitch. It was her fault, there was no real need to
post the letter that day, no need to come back into the house,
no need to die.
And then there were the funerals, all those tear-jerking
funerals, with him standing in the background and watching
as they lowered the bodies, his bodies, into the uncaring
ground. They were simply doing their job, doing their
allegiance sworn, flag flying duty. He and Brown, just
following orders, nothing else; damn him to hell too.
***
"Are you sure about this?" Daniels asked as they got out of the
cab. "It reminds me of Watts on a good night!"
Capriotti paid the driver and joined his friend at the
entrance to the dark alley. "Where’s your spirit of adventure?"
"I lost it along with my virginity," Daniels retorted, a
concerned gaze looking up at the dark and foreboding
buildings that lined the equally inauspicious alleyway. They
both turned as a door opened half way down and a laughing
couple fell out into the street. "Looks like they’ve found some
of your spirit."
"Come on, Sergei said some of the best jazz clubs in
Moscow are down here."
Daniels stopped in his tracks. "Sergei, as in KGB, stroke,
breakfast waiter Sergei?"
Capriotti ignored the inference and instead continued
walking down the alley until he came to the paint peeled door
he had stood outside earlier in the day. He banged on it with
his fist. It opened a few inches, the same bear of a man
standing behind it. He instantly recognised the tall American
and smiled, opening the door wide and waving the two
foreigners inside. Capriotti pushed the hesitant Daniels
forward and into the damp corridor that led down to the club’s
entrance. They could hear music and voices coming from the
other side of the far door. Capriotti pulled it open and their
senses were immediately assaulted by more than a hundred

52
laughing, drunken Muscovites. The large room was packed, a
five-piece band playing on the small stage, the tables full, the
bar four deep with thirsty people trying to attract the bar
staff ’s attention.
"I’m impressed," Daniels shouted, trying to hear himself
above the raucous laughter and badly amplified music as they
struggled and jostled their way across the room to the crowded
bar. A large smile crossed the barman’s sweaty face as he
recognised the American, his arm immediately pointing
towards the unlabelled bottles on the counter top. Capriotti
raised his thumb in return, watching as the man produced a
dirty cloth, wiped the insides of two glasses and then poured a
couple of generous shots. Stretching across several waiting
patrons, Capriotti handed him a five-dollar bill, grabbed hold
of the glasses and then pushed and shoved his way back out
into the centre of the room before moving towards the far side
and leaning up against the dirty wooden wall. There were no
air conditioners in the room, the ever increasing clouds of blue
and grey cigarette smoke eddying around them and reminding
Capriotti of rolling smog on a bad air day in downtown L.A.
He nudged his friend and pointed towards the stage and the
band dressed in Cossack red shirts, black blowsy trousers and
matching tie-up leather boots. The drummer had a Mohican
haircut and a hammer and sickle tattoo on both arms. The girl
singing at the front was big, busty and blonde, the colour
having obviously come from a cheap peroxide bottle. Daniels
shouted into Capriotti’s ear that she looked like a Russian
version of Mama Cass.
The table in front of them was suddenly empty, the happy
couple moving back across the room towards the exit.
Capriotti grabbed a chair and motioned to Daniels to sit
down. Their eyes were becoming more accustomed to the
gloom and smoke and they could see that there was an equal
mix of men and women. Some of the men wore suits; others
were in working clothes. The women were all ages; a large
percentage in short dresses, boots and loose fitting tops.

53
 "Hookers," Daniels said knowingly, indicating with his
eyes.
Capriotti followed the direction of his friend’s stare. A
group of young girls was lounging across several tables that
had been pulled together, they were noisy and obviously
enjoying themselves. Two of them were standing on chairs
making suggestive, gyrating movements towards the men
propping up the bar.
"Subtle," Capriotti replied, his attention drawn to the left
of the girls and a commotion that seemed to have flared up
from nothing. Several men were arguing at another table, their
voices raised and now hanging in the air above the general
hubbub of the room. From nowhere, one of the men threw a
punch and a second, heavily bearded man, fell to the floor.
There was a scuffle and then the man on the floor pulled a
knife, Capriotti watching as he staggered back to his feet and
moved menacingly towards the aggressor who had thrown the
punch. The blade flashed wickedly in the stark glare of the
stage lights, the steel slicing the other man’s forearm, blood
immediately soaking his white shirt. A woman screamed,
drawing the attention of the room. Capriotti continued to
watch as a smartly dressed older man moved quickly across the
floor and barked something in Russian.
The bearded man with the knife turned, his face contorted
and mean with drunken rage. An expectant hush fell over the
whole room as the knifeman seemed to size up the situation,
the onlookers watching as his vodka-soaked brain tried to
work out the options. Both men stood facing each other and
Capriotti gauged the second man to be around fifty-five,
maybe a little older. The drunk seemed to teeter forward, the
knife still clenched in a tight, callused grip. In one fluid hand
movement the man in the suit pulled a gun from his
waistband and stuck it roughly between the bearded man’s
eyes. The knifeman appeared to hesitate and then slowly his
arm lowered to his side. The older man started to turn away
and then, with a vicious crack, he brought the barrel of the

54
gun down and across the other man’s temple, the pole-axed
victim hitting the ground like a felled ox, the knife spinning
across the floor and coming to a rest under Capriotti’s table.
Gesturing impatiently towards two of the bar staff, the suited
man watched disinterestedly as they hurried across the floor
and then dragged the prostrate figure towards the exit. His
friends followed, including the now subdued reveller with the
bloodied shirtsleeve. The man in the suit turned to the stage
and the band began to bang out another tune. He replaced the
gun in his waistband and crossed to Capriotti’s table.
"Nothing to worry about," he said in heavily accented
English. "I’m sure the same thing happens back home in your
clubs."
Capriotti rose from his seat. He was several inches taller
than the man in front of him and probably ten pounds
heavier. "Have we met?"
"This afternoon." The smile was pearly white, the teeth
even and straight. "You came in with the driver from the
Intourist."
"Sorry, I must have missed the introductions."
"Dmitri Orlanov. I own this club."
Capriotti introduced Daniels and then himself. "You’re
probably right, it’s no different from country night back home
in Dallas."
"Are you both from Texas?" Orlanov asked, bending down
and retrieving the knife from under the table.
"New York originally. Dan’s from Boston."
Orlanov turned and handed the knife to one of the bar
staff. "I blame the local vodka. Please, enjoy the rest of the
evening. My apologies for the disturbance." He smiled again
before casually walking back across to the bar area.
"I wouldn’t want to meet him on a dark night," Daniels
said in a low voice. He drained his glass. "You sure know how
to pick a venue."
"I don't know, he seemed to defuse the situation with a
certain amount of aplomb."

55
 "Try telling that to the guy with the knife, if he ever wakes
up again." Before Capriotti could comment, one of the
barmen walked over and placed two more glasses and a bottle
of vodka on the table. Capriotti tried to object but the man
turned and pointed back towards the bar. Orlanov raised his
glass and smiled, Daniels raising his own by way of a thank
you. "Looks like you’ve gained a friend. What the hell were
you doing here this afternoon?"
"I wish I could remember." He waved a toast toward their
genial host, his attention suddenly pulled back to the stage.
The band was taking another break and the crowd had again
become hushed and expectant, the bar area emptying as most
of the male patrons pressed forward towards the stage.
"Looks like it’s show time," Daniels said, pouring himself
another shot as the main lights were dimmed and several
spotlights were switched on. The stage was bathed in a soft
blue hue and someone turned on a tape player, a strident
fanfare greeting the arrival of two scantily dressed girls from
behind the curtain. "This is more like it," he enthused, "we
older men need to be kept abreast of what young women look
like."
"Remind me to pass your comments on to Betty."
They watched as the girls began to cavort around the stage
in varying degrees of undress, the male dominated crowd
baying for more as the young performers got down to their bra
and panties. The girls were big busty brunettes but, before
they or the pressing crowd could go any further, the curtains
closed and the women were again hidden from view.
"Typical Russkies," Daniels moaned, taking another sip of
his drink. "All bluster and no follow through."
"Does Betty know she’s married to a closet pervert?"
"What do you think after forty years of blissful
monogamy?"
The music started up again and two more girls moved from
behind the curtains, Capriotti nearly choking on his drink as
he recognised the taller of the two. He watched in fascination

56
as she suggestively moved around the stage, disrobing as she
went, her body firm, her stomach perfectly flat and toned. She
had long tapered legs and beautifully sculptured breasts that
were barely covered by the skimpy halter-top.
"Friend of yours?" Daniels asked, noticing his companion’s
rapt attention.
"I might be wrong, but the taller blonde looks like our girl
from the hotel business centre. Either that or she’s got an
identical twin sister."
Daniels fumbled for his glasses as the music faded and the
curtains again closed. The crowd roared its approval as
Capriotti poured himself another drink and leaned back in the
chair. A third pair of red-headed girls came onto the stage and
did a similar dance routine until the curtains closed for the
final time, the spotlights and tape recorder were switched off
and the main lights turned back on. The crowd seemed to
groan collectively as the band trooped back onto the stage.
"Short and sweet, just how my wife likes it," Daniels chortled,
by now feeling the effects of the vodka. "I’ll tell you one thing,
this country sure has some good looking women."
Capriotti was not listening. The blonde dancer had dressed
again and was now standing at the bar beside Orlanov. The
club owner had his arm around her shoulders and was
whispering in her ear. She smiled and then laughed aloud,
Capriotti continuing to watch as he bent over, kissed her
quickly on the cheek, patted her behind and then moved over
to a group of men at the far end of the bar. The American got
up without a word and crossed the floor. Daniels groaned
inwardly.
As he reached the bar, he called out her name. Her head
turned and, for a second, she didn’t seem to recognise him.
"The hotel, I sent a fax earlier tonight."
The girl smiled awkwardly. "It’s Mr Capriotti, isn’t it?" She
looked embarrassed, almost edgy, her eyes seeming to flicker
over his left shoulder and across to the other side of the room.
He twisted around and followed her gaze towards the end of

57
the bar and Dmitri Orlanov. The American smiled, raised his
glass and then waved. Orlanov held his smile but Capriotti got
the distinct feeling that it was suddenly less than friendly. He
turned back towards the girl.
"Your boss?"
"Friend. I’m sorry, but he’s rather possessive. If you’ll excuse
me?" She walked down the bar and let her arm drape around
Orlanov’s waist. Capriotti returned to the table.
Daniels had a sneer on his face. "Nice move, Cappy; you
just saw the man pistol-whip a knife wielding drunk, buy you
a drink and make sure the whole room knew he was porking
the blonde dancer. It’s his club, his city and yet you feel it’s
worth sidling over to the bar and hitting on the broad.
Smooth, real smooth."
"Not too subtle, I’ll admit," Capriotti replied. "Maybe it’s
time to get out whilst my legs are still intact."
The two men rose and moved towards the exit, neither
noticing the look in Orlanov’s eyes nor the cold gaze that
followed them across the room. The giant on the door walked
down to the main road and hailed a cab. Daniels gave him five
dollars and a warm smile as Capriotti told the driver to take
them to the Intourist. The man grunted bad temperedly as he
turned the cab around and drove back the way he had come,
Capriotti muttering that he could make a good living plying
his trade in downtown New York.
Sergei Illanovitch moved out from behind the shadows of
the darkened doorway. He had been surprised when the two
Americans had driven up an hour earlier. He had known it was
risky taking Capriotti inside Orlanov’s club, although it was
minimised because he could legitimately pass for the
American’s driver. If Orlanov did suspect, he would probably
put it down to the security services doing their duty. Even in
these new and enlightened times, foreigners, and especially
journalists, were not normally allowed to travel around the
city on their own.
Sergei rubbed his cold hands together. His wife would be

58
tucked up in bed with their five-year-old. She hated the hours
but they needed the money; he had not lied when Capriotti
had asked about the food shortages.
He moved back into the shadows as Orlanov’s black
Mercedes pulled up to the door. Several minutes passed and
then the club owner appeared along with the girl, Sergei
watching as he guided her into the back of the new car.
Sergei Illanovitch hated Orlanov and his ilk. They were
nothing more than opportunist gangsters; men who preyed on
the fluidity of the situation and the hardship created by the
monumental changes that were devastating his country. Sergei
was a patriot who believed in Russia, the system and the need
for discipline at all times. He had seen the excesses of the
communists but the system had worked after a fashion;
Gorbachev’s arrival had changed everything. The new
openness, the ability to flout the old system had spawned a
new order, a new power base. Orlanov had taken advantage of
that openness, he and his friends growing rich by exploiting
the chaos and the total breakdown of the old system. Sergei
watched as the Mercedes quietly crunched through the falling
snow, waiting a further five minutes before finally slipping out
from his hiding place and walking towards the riverbank and
his own car.
***
Aziz was sitting alone in the sumptuous surroundings of the
Iraqi ambassador’s private residence. Ubedidi had insisted his
Foreign Minister use the guest quarters. A small glass of
brandy sat on the table beside him and across the room an
open log fire was crackling in the slate hearth. Brought up in
the south of Iraq, close to the Kuwaiti border, Tariq Aziz
would never get used to the Russian cold or for the need to
heat a room. His rise through the government ranks had been
steady but sure and made all the easier by the constant removal
of the men above him. Aziz had learned from an early age that
agreeing with Saddam meant the Amn-al-Amm would not

59
break into your house in the early hours and transport you,
your family and your family’s family off to the cells beneath
Khatib’s offices. Aziz, like Sergei, was a patriot, his loyalty
offered willingly to the country he loved. He might not always
privately concur with Saddam or his despotic policies but he
did not object to the rise and influence Iraq had gained within
the region and its continuing position of predominance within
the Arab states.
Eduard Shevarndnadze had greeted Aziz at the airport. The
two Foreign ministers had met several times over the past few
years, usually in Washington or New York's UN building. The
Russian came from Georgia and Aziz had long held the
suspicion that Shevarndnadze was more concerned with the
affairs of his homeland, rather than the old USSR and its
allies. If his misgivings were true, it would go a long way to
explaining the cosy relationship the man had fostered, first
with Reagan and now with Bush.
Aziz took another sip of warm brandy. He normally never
drank, but the situation and the insufferable cold had tempted
him. He looked up as Salah Ubedidi re-entered the room. The
two men went back a long way, both having been brought up
in the same small border village, both having passed their civil
service exams before further years of education and formal
training in Baghdad. Aziz had pulled a few influential strings
to ensure his friend’s Moscow appointment and, if there was
one man he could really trust, it was the stooped person now
placing another log on the open fire.
"Still not used to the cold, eh Tariq?"
"Not now or ever, old friend." He finished the brandy and
pulled his chair closer to the hearth. Ubedidi removed the
stopper from the decanter and poured another stiff measure
into both his and Aziz’s glass. "Careful," the Foreign Minister
spluttered, trying to place a protective hand over the top of the
glass. "I need a clear head for tomorrow."
Ubedidi replaced the decanter on the mantle above the
fireplace. "Does it really make any difference? The Russians

60
don't care about us. We both know the Americans will
withhold financial aid if they give us their support. I
sometimes wonder why you bother."
Aziz leaned back in the chair. He had removed his Italian
loafers and was now trying to warm his toes on the hearth. "I
sometimes wonder myself," the older man said with
unmitigated feeling. "When this is all over we will have a
country to rebuild. It’s my job to ensure that the least amount
of damage is done."
"Careful Tariq, that’s defeatist talk."
"Maybe so, but only a madman would believe he could
defeat the Americans and their coalition partners. Bush has
drawn a line in the sand and Saddam is determined to have his
day in the sun."
"Do you think he will fall?"
"I don't know. The Americans want to claw back control of
the Middle East and the only sure way of doing so is to force
the Arab leaders to toe the imperialist line. Look at Mubarak;
the fundamentalists are tearing Egypt apart, yet, whom does
he turn to for help? Hussein and Fahd are no better, they pay
lip service to the Arab League but their eyes are turned West
towards London and Washington. If Saddam does fall, the
Americans will want their own man in the Presidential
Palace."
"Will that man be you?" Ubedidi asked softly.
"I trust we will not be listening to this conversation being
played back in Khatib’s office," Aziz replied, referring to Iraq’s
Chief of Secret Police. "I can just imagine the glint in his
beady little eyes if he heard us speaking now."
"I have the building electronically swept every morning and
afternoon. No one is allowed in my private quarters, not even
Colonel Al-Sawabi. Don't worry, we are safe here."
"I hope so." Aziz took another sip of his brandy and
mentally shivered at the mention of Khatib's name. "I’m
scheduled to address the Security Council next week. Saddam
is still refusing to release the BA passengers and is now talking

61
about housing them in some of our more sensitive
installations. My real fear is he might kill them to show his
misplaced determination."
"Would their release help our cause?"
"To be honest, I doubt it. The Americans have been
looking for an Arab country to belittle since the Pan Am
bombing over Scotland and the incidents in Lebanon and
Teheran. No, they want their political pound of flesh; we are
going to war and they are going to make sure we lose. I doubt
if there is anything or anyone who can stop Saddam from
falling."

62
Sunday, November 25th

C apriotti woke after a good night’s sleep, thanks mainly to

the vodka and the additional bedding he had managed to
procure from a bemused concierge. Bitter experience, and too
many lost nights, had taught him the dream could not
compete with copious amounts of alcohol.
Rising from the dishevelled bed, he stumbled into the
bathroom, turned on the bath taps, shaved over the sink and
then slipped gingerly under the steaming water, the phone
beginning to ring just as he finished lathering his hair with
soap. He tried to ignore it but it continued to ring and,
sinking under the surface again, he rinsed the soap, grabbed
for the towel and then puddled to the bedside table and the
strident phone. It was Daniels, as he knew it would be.
"The meeting’s cancelled until tomorrow. Baker’s been
delayed in Saudi. Any plans?"
"I’d like to finish my bath, if that’s okay with you?"
Capriotti said, dripping with water and sarcasm.
"Pardon me for caring about your career. I’ll meet you
downstairs."
The phone went dead, the still smiling Capriotti climbing
back into the bath and wondering whether Dan Daniels ever
did anything but work. Of course, it was fairly easy for Daniels
to call one of the numerous Reuters' offices scattered around
the globe and find out what was happening. The Houston
Chronicle, unlike its illustrious and world famous counterpart,
did not have any overseas bureaus. Then again, there was a
fundamental difference between what the two journalists did;
Daniels reported on the ongoing news as it broke on a daily,
even hourly basis whilst Capriotti generally offered a studied
and hopefully more objective opinion once the news was out
and in the public domain. He likened his own role to CBS’s
Sixty Minutes, the journalist digging beneath the surface of an

63
item and cutting away the froth and media hyperbole. His job,
at least as he saw it, was to tell the American public about the
true facts, the personalities behind them and any repercussions
from their perspective. Daniels, in simple TV parlance, was
the man who stood in front of the camera and frothed
animatedly as the house burned down behind him.
Delaney had taught him thirty years earlier that anyone
could rush over to a shooting or a fire and simply report on
what had happened. A real journalist wanted to find out who
the shooter was or who had set the fire and what was going
through their respective minds before, during and after the
situation was instigated. Delaney had spent thirty years as a
crime reporter and in the process had gathered enough insight
into the human mind to gain an honorary doctorate in
psychology. Repeatedly, he had impressed upon the young
Capriotti that there were only two things that motivated and
drove human beings to commit crimes against society: the
desire for money and the desire for power. You could not have
the second without the first and without the first, there was no
second. Delaney had used this rule of thumb when
investigating the Kennedy shooting and felt sure the motive
was power, money or a combination of both.
Over the years, Capriotti had become less sure of his old
friend’s two-rule assessment, particularly after years spent
reporting on the Palestinian resurgence, Arafat's Fatah
movement, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and their increasing
use of fanatical suicide bombers. No, he would have added
religious fundamentalism to Delaney’s list. Then again, the old
reporter would have probably chuckled aloud, blown a thick
plume of smoke across the marble top of the Irish bar and told
him to look higher up the food chain at the people who
controlled and influenced these susceptible young men.
He dried himself and then dressed. Maybe Delaney was
right and power and money were the only two corrupting
forces?
The sleet was falling again, the small patch of grass across

64
the road already covered with several inches of wet, slushy
snow. He turned away from the window, picked up his watch
and locked the door.
Daniels was already in the sparsely furnished dining room,
a plate of sad looking sausages in front of him. He looked up
as Capriotti crossed the room.
"If you like sawdust mixed with gristle, go for the sausages."
"Coffee will be fine," he replied as Sergei appeared from
behind the kitchen door.
"How’s the head this morning, Mr Capriotti?"
"Better, thank you. We went back to that jazz club last
night, it’s quite a place, although I’m not sure your
interpretation of jazz is the same as ours. If you do ever get to
the States I’ll take you to Benny’s on Bourbon Street."
"You should perhaps be telling the club’s owner."
"Ah, the urbane Dmitri Orlanov," Daniels said, through a
mouthful of soggy sausage. "There’s a man who missed his
true vocation! I can just picture him running some twenties
‘speak easy’ with Elliot Ness hammering down the door."
"Elliot Ness?"
"A prohibition agent from the nineteen twenties; you must
have heard of the Untouchables and Al Capone?"
"The famous American gangster?" Sergei said as he
removed Daniels’ empty plate and wiped the table.
"Infamous," Capriotti corrected. "He died in jail from
syphilis - not a nice way to go, or so I’m reliably informed."
"And you think Orlanov’s like your Capone?"
"We’re joking," Capriotti laughed. "Orlanov didn’t look the
Mafia type to me."
Sergei had picked up the rest of the dishes and was halfway
across the floor when he turned and looked at Capriotti.
"Looks are often deceiving; as a journalist you should surely
appreciate that more than most?"
"What the hell was that all about?" Daniels enquired, once
Sergei was back in the kitchen and out of earshot. "I don't know
about you but I get the distinct feeling we just hit a raw nerve."

65
 "So it would seem; there’s obviously more to our young
waiter than meets the eye."
"What’s on your agenda this morning? I’ve got to drop by
the office and pick up some bulletins from Washington. Want
to come along for the ride?"
"I’ll take a rain check, if you don’t mind," Capriotti replied
as his large friend pushed back the chair and rose slowly from
the table. "There’s something I need to do at this end. I’ll catch
you later."
Capriotti returned to his room, pulled a small bottle of
aftershave from his toilet bag and liberally splashed some of the
contents onto his palms before patting them across his cheeks
and neck. The something in question worked on the third floor
in the business centre. Old bastard, he thought, checking his
reflection in the bathroom mirror, and then smiling as he
remembered that Orlanov was at least five years his senior.
Retrieving the laptop from the bottom of the wardrobe, he
sat down at the table and began typing out his report.
Something Sergei had said earlier was beginning to trigger a
thought process; the seedy club by the river, the drunk with
the knife, Orlanov, the automatic in his waistband, the
strippers, Natasha - it had all the makings of something bigger.
He went over the conversation in the car and the mention of
black marketeers and the Red Mafia; Sergei had seemed ready
to say more but had checked himself, just like he had at the
breakfast table. They had been joking about Capone and the
Mafia but something about Sergei’s uncompromising look had
reminded him of Orlanov and the tight-lipped glare at the bar
when he approached the girl. He had seen that same look in
Washington; it was the one used by powerful men who believe
they possess the woman on their arm.
As he finished his report and plugged in the bubble jet
printer, there was a discreet knock on the door and then an
envelope was pushed under it and onto the carpet. It was a
telex from Mike Jarvis. Capriotti scanned the single page,
screwed it into a tight ball and angrily threw it towards the

66
metal bin in the corner. Daniels was right, only queers and
steers had ever come out of Texas.
The elevator stopped at the third floor, Capriotti again
checking his reflection before stepping out and walking the
few yards to the business centre. Natasha was sitting alone at
the desk and looked up as the door opened, her eyes showing
that she instantly recognised the American, a slight flush
spreading across her pale features.
"Mr Capriotti?"
"Hello again. I’m sorry to bother you but I’ve another fax
for Houston."
"Of course, shall I charge it to your room?"
He nodded and then watched as she took the page and set
up the fax machine. She dialled and waited patiently for the
number to connect. When it finally did, they both heard the
international busy tone. "If you wish, I’ll keep trying and then
have the original returned to your room."
"I’ve nothing much on this morning," he replied and then
added with as much nonchalance as he could muster, "I might
as well wait." His eyes followed her as she returned to the desk
and the open book sitting on top, his brain racing as he tried
to think of something else to say. "I hope I didn’t embarrass
you last night. I had no idea you danced in a club."
"No, not at all."
"You’re a pretty good dancer," Capriotti tried again and
then inwardly cursed for saying something so crass and banal.
She blushed. "It’s not often a guest from the hotel comes to
the club."
"Your friend seemed to handle himself pretty well. Does he
always carry an automatic in his waistband?"
"He runs a club, Mr Capriotti. Sometimes there’s trouble.
The gun’s for protection."
"Who from?"
"I really don’t think that’s any of your business, do you?"
"Sorry, it must be my journalistic instincts. Your English is
excellent; have you been to the States?"

67
 She looked up from the desk, her eyebrows furrowed. "I
trained as a translator and no, I haven’t been to your country."
"Dancing’s a hobby then?"
"Excuse me?"
"Look, I’m making a pig's ear of this. All I wanted was to
ask you to lunch." He turned and opened the door. "I really
didn’t mean to embarrass you."
"I finish at one thirty," she smiled, as the door closed.
***
Detective Sergei Illanovitch, first class, pulled up the collar of
his coat and tried to start the Skoda’s cold engine. If he
hurried, he could get down to the office, check his phone
messages and be back at the hotel before one. The engine
finally caught and he drove quickly and assuredly across the
city to the nondescript office three blocks down from the
Central Committee Building on Novaya Plosehad. Illanovitch
shared his cramped workspace with two other members of the
recently formed computer fraud squad and would have
laughed out loud had he known that the two Americans
thought he was KGB. He had joined the Moscow police force
after two years of compulsory conscription and an
unimaginable hell fighting US backed Afghani tribes in the
mountains north of Kabul. His father was also a policeman
and had called in a few favours and greased a few palms to
shoehorn his son into the force, although it helped that the
young Illanovitch had studied both computers and English at
university. After graduating, and weeks before his military call
up, he had married his first and only girlfriend and they now
lived in one of the people’s apartments, the same drab-looking
apartments that he and Capriotti had passed the previous day.
They had one bedroom, a small kitchen, a sparsely furnished
living area, a toilet and a communal bath space they shared
with the other families on the twelfth floor.
Sergei walked into the small office and crossed to his metal
desk and the department’s one and only computer terminal.

68
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent cracks in
Soviet society there had been a huge increase in all manner of
illegal activities. Moscow had not been immune, and for the
past two years he had been on secondment with the OC
Division. Organised crime and the so called Red Mafia were
fast becoming a major problem, the country’s new found
democracy bringing all the ills and problems associated with
an emerging capitalist society. Moscow might well be the
Russian capital but it still had to pay for its needs, just the
same as any other hungry metropolis. When those needs and
expectations were not met, there were men and organisations
that would provide them on demand – but always at a price.
Initially, this had been mainly food, but as money became
more readily available the needs became ever more
sophisticated and, in most cases, ever more illegal.
It had not taken the new OC Division long to realise that
several of the more influential crime syndicates were run by
retired or, in some cases, serving members of the security
forces. Ex-KGB Major Dmitri Orlanov was a prime example
and a man well known for his fierce opposition to glasnost and
perestroika and his vehement hatred for Mikhail Gorbachev
and everything he stood for. His enforced departure from the
department had not come as a great surprise to those in the
know, although his subsequent meteoric rise and growing
political standing in Moscow’s burgeoning free enterprise
community had been startling. Not that anyone thought it
strange he had access to funds; there was not a policeman or
security agent in Russia who had not accepted a bribe to look
the other way, had not skimmed confiscated money and drugs,
or simply gone out and robbed a bank.
Illanovitch had first come across Orlanov’s name eighteen
months earlier when the ex-major had been implicated in a
high-class prostitute ring. The case had seemed watertight but,
before the man could be pulled in and questioned, it had
suddenly and quietly been dropped. It wasn’t until Illanovitch
joined the computer fraud section that he began to realise that

69
money was no longer the single necessity for power and
influence. As he dug deeper into Orlanov’s empire, he began
to discover that the man traded in one of the world’s oldest
and most viable commodities: blackmail. Orlanov had neither
bought nor stolen the clubs, property, trucks and other
material prerequisites required to build up his empire, they
had simply and quietly been given to him - given to him by
government ministers, parliamentary MPs, businessmen, in
fact anyone who had something to hide.
Orlanov had worked for thirty years in the KGB and knew
how and where the secrets were collated and stored. The KGB
had voluminous computer files that made the FBI’s records
look like pencil jottings in a child’s workbook. Long before the
building of the Berlin Wall and the Cold War, the KGB had
collected and stored information on a global basis. They had
records on two thirds of all Russian businessmen and women,
as well as detailed information on their own leaders,
Communist Party members and the new parliamentary
delegates. They had records on foreign leaders, international
and Fortune 500 company CEOs and their key executives.
They had details of shady business transactions, mistresses,
sexual deviation, in fact anything that could be used to
influence and corrupt. The records went back to Stalin and the
end of the Second World War.
Illanovitch had been seconded to the computer fraud
division because of his expertise and knowledge of computers
and computer hackers. Over the six months he had worked
there it had become patently clear that someone was tapping
into KGB and other government held records and using the
damning information to blackmail ordinary and not so
ordinary citizens. Major Dmitri Orlanov was a prime suspect.
As a part of his ongoing investigation, the young policeman
had been ensconced in the Intourist hotel for the past three
weeks. They had received an unconnected report that Orlanov
seemed to be forming a relationship with a woman called
Natasha Kerchenko and, although an initial computer search

70
on the girl had turned up very little, they knew she had been
born and educated in Leningrad. She had studied French and
English at the local university, training as a translator before
graduating in the top five of her class, and it had been
expected she would secure a position within a foreign office
ministry, her tutors surprised when no offer had been
forthcoming. Illanovitch had travelled by train to Leningrad
and interviewed some of her former classmates as well as the
senior Professor of Foreign Languages. Alexander Sharon’s
thoughtful summation had revealed an exemplary ex-student.
They knew her father had died not long after her birth, that
her mother had brought her up alone and there were no other
close relatives. Her mother had died of lung cancer several
years earlier and, after leaving university, the girl had worked
for a shipping importer in Leningrad. At the beginning of
October she had suddenly quit her job and moved to Moscow.
Illanovitch had interviewed the owner of the shipping
company and he had reported that Natasha had been a
valuable asset and they were disappointed to lose her. When
asked if he knew why she left, he had shrugged his shoulders,
but then added as an afterthought that he’d offered to increase
her salary if she would change her mind.
Illanovitch would not normally have gone undercover, his
primary job being to track down white-collar criminals on the
computer. His superior had been surprised by his request,
although perhaps not as surprised as Illanovitch’s wife might
have been had she known her husband’s true motives.
***
The small cafe across the road from the Intourist was
testament to the growth of the new Moscow’s service
economy. It was small, brightly lit and clean, the service quick,
efficient and discreet. The cafe provided soft drinks, tea, coffee
and several different and interesting types of sandwich.
Capriotti had eaten in similar establishments in New York
where hot russian sausage was the staple sandwich filling and it

71
always amazed him how they managed to concoct the
delicious and varying ways of serving it. He ordered green pea
soup, the sausage and a pot of coffee. Natasha turned down
the sausage but agreed to have the soup and coffee. She was
wearing a grey overcoat that hid her figure, her hair now loose
and hanging evenly on slim shoulders. He noticed she had
applied a touch of lipstick and eye make-up.
"I really shouldn’t be here," she started, looking across to
the door. "I’m sure the hotel has rules about employees
fraternising with the guests."
He smiled at her use of the word and its old Franco-
Prussian meaning. "Fraternising? I’m not the enemy. The last
time I looked we were supposed to be allies."
She sat back from the table as the waitress placed a hot pot
of coffee and two clean white mugs onto the starched
tablecloth. "You know what I mean." They watched in silence
as the older woman poured from the pot and then moved back
across to the counter.
"Your English really is very good," Capriotti said, trying
not to sound patronising. "I only wish I could speak a foreign
language. It would certainly make my job much easier."
"We need English if we want to work outside our own
country. It’s not as important for Americans to learn a foreign
language."
"I suppose not, most people speak English nowadays."
Capriotti raised his cup and took a sip. The hotel kitchen staff
could learn a lot from the cafe over the road. "What brought
you to the Intourist? I wouldn’t have thought there was much
call for your talents in the business centre."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "It’s a job, they’re hard to come
by these days."
They sat in awkward silence as the waitress returned with
the soup and a basket of hot bread. Capriotti buttered a slice
and then handed it across the table. He was rewarded by a
smiling thank you. "Tell me about your job," she said, blowing
softly over the soup on her spoon.

72
 "There’s not much to tell. I’ve worked as a journalist for
most of my life. I live in Dallas but work for a paper called the
Houston Chronicle. I travel the world and report on what I
see."
"It sounds wonderful."
"Like most jobs, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I’m
generally sent to war zones, usually arriving just in time to
report on another senseless atrocity."
"What’s Dallas like?" she suddenly said, catching Capriotti
momentarily off guard. A slow smile crossed his lips. Most
people associated Dallas with the phenomenal success of the
television series.
"Do you mean JR, Sue Ellen and Southfork?"
"No, the city itself," she said firmly.
"It’s ultra modern, thanks in part to oil money. Before JR
Ewing, it was known as the place where President Kennedy
was assassinated…" He hesitated, noting her sudden intake of
breath. "Sorry, I keep forgetting, you’re too young to
remember that far back."
She laughed. "How old do you think I am?"
"Mid twenties?"
"If only; come January and I cross that great thirty divide.
I was almost two when Kennedy was murdered." Capriotti
was surprised by her use of the word, in all his years he had
never once heard anyone refer to the President’s death as
murder. "How old were you when he was killed?" she asked.
"Do you really have to know?" She nodded her head.
"Twenty two and, before you ask, that makes me fifty on my
birthday."
"The passing years have treated you kindly, Mr Capriotti."
"John, please."
The waitress hovered, and removed the soup plates,
returning several seconds later with Capriotti’s sausage
sandwich. "I can’t eat all of this," he said in mock indignation.
"You’ll have to help me." He cut it in two and placed one half
on Natasha’s bread plate.

73
 They ate in silence for several minutes before she pushed
her plate away, watching as he finished off the sausage. "Were
you in Dallas when he died?"
"Kennedy? Yes, I was in the Tribune’s newsroom when the
first reports came in over the wires. My partner and I were
sitting in a bar on Main Street when we learned he was dead.
It’s true what they say about remembering that day; although
I was young, it still came as a terrible shock. Grown men were
openly weeping in the bar, we really thought it was the end of
the world."
"End of the world, yes," the girl murmured, a faraway look
passing fleetingly across her face. Capriotti noticed the change
but before he could comment she checked her watch. "I must
get back. They only allow us thirty minutes for lunch."
He called the waitress over and asked for the bill, the old
woman's face lighting up when he added a generous dollar tip.
Rising from the table, he helped Natasha’s into her heavy coat
before holding open the door. As they hurriedly crossed the
busy road, Capriotti took Natasha’s arm and gently guided her
between the advancing traffic. "I don't suppose we could meet
again?" he asked as they neared the hotel entrance.
"I’m not sure."
"Have a think about it," Capriotti pressed as he held open
the door and let her pass into the hotel lobby. "You can tell me
about life in Leningrad and I’ll bore you with more details of
Dallas."
She smiled as the elevator doors opened. "You know where
I work."
They rode up to the third floor in silence. He held open the
elevator door as she looked in her handbag for the office key.
"I’ll need to send another fax to my office tonight. Maybe
you’ll have made a decision by then?"
Her reply was an evasive "We’ll see," as the elevator doors
closed and she was gone from sight.
His fifth floor room was freezing. He sat down at the desk
and tried to concentrate on the laptop screen in front of him

74
but it remained blank for a long time, his thoughts lingering
on the young woman two floors beneath him.
Sergei Illanovitch had watched Capriotti and Natasha
Kerchenko from the parked Skoda, an idea beginning to
formulate in his head.
***
Dmitri Orlanov stood in his corner office and looked down
over the slow moving Moskva. The window panes were soot
stained, the sky dark and overcast, but the view was still
impressive with several barges continuing to ply their
centuries-old trade along the ancient waterway by bringing
fresh fruit and vegetables into the teeming metropolis. Not
that too many barges were arriving at the end of November.
The capital was already settling down for the long winter and
Orlanov knew that soon the river, and indeed most of the city,
would be frozen solid. Lighting an imported Marlboro, he
returned to the oak desk, his hand sliding lovingly over the
highly polished surface. It was also imported but this time
from a German supplier. He liked the Germans and their
attention to detail, which probably explained the Mercedes
five-hundred series sitting outside and also the seven series
BMW tucked away at home in his four-car garage. He sat back
into the deep leather seat and pressed the intercom button on
his right, his secretary answering immediately. He told her to
send in the man she had kept sitting in the anteroom for the
best part of forty minutes. Getting up, he wondered, not for
the first time during the past half-hour, what he wanted.
There was a polite knock, the door opened, and Karina
showed in a Middle Eastern man dressed in a smart khaki-
coloured suit. She asked Orlanov if she should bring in some
coffee. He shook his head and then dismissed her with a wave
of his hand, pointing the man towards a second leather chair
in front of the desk. His visitor smiled nervously and sat down.
"Thank you for seeing me at such short notice, Major
Orlanov," the Arab said in faultless Russian.

75
 "As I’m sure you know, I no longer work for the KGB."
Orlanov moved around the desk and lowered his trim frame
into the leather swivel chair. "You should also appreciate that
now is not a good time to be seen talking with a member of
the Iraqi security services. I therefore trust this meeting will be
kept short and to the point."
The Arab placed his black leather briefcase on the desk and
opened it. He missed the look of concern on Orlanov’s face as
the bottom of the case came in contact with the beautiful oak
top. "We require information," he said, removing several large
bundles of American banknotes from the case. "My
government is prepared to pay you half a million dollars now
and another half million on delivery."
Orlanov leaned forward and picked one of the bundles off
the desk. He handled it with exaggerated reverence. "And just
what kind of information might you be you looking for,
Colonel Al-Sawabi?"
The Arab looked nervously from behind his briefcase. "We
won’t know the answer to that until you find it," he began, an
embarrassed smile crossing his face. "It’s our understanding
you still have excellent contacts within the Ministry. We would
like to access some of their more sensitive files and in
particular the ones pertaining to certain influential figures."
Orlanov sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. He
closed his eyes for several seconds before opening them again
and looking over the desk at the Iraqi attaché. Al-Sawabi was
registered at his embassy as a cultural assistant and Orlanov
had used the man’s services over the years. He was a member
of the Ba’Th Party and during the Iran-Iraq war had been a
useful go between for the KGB. The Russians were well aware
he reported directly to Iraq’s Chief of Counter Intelligence and
they, like the Americans, had not wanted Muslim
fundamentalism to spill over the Iranian borders. Whilst the
Americans had worried about the spread of terrorism, the
Soviets wanted to ensure that the Muslim enclaves in the East
of their vast country did not take succour from the situation.

76
Both powers had supplied Saddam with billions of dollars
worth of weapons. Now the Americans were standing on Iraq’s
border and Al-Sawabi was sitting in his office.
"It might help if you told me who these key figures were
and just what information you want me to look for."
Al-Sawabi pulled a single sheet of paper from the case and
handed it across the desk. Orlanov unfolded it and looked at
the six typed names. Four of them were Americans, including
George Bush; one was British and the last Israeli. "We would
like to be able to influence the actions of each of these people."
His voice was low, as if he felt they might be overheard.
"Saddam must be getting desperate," Orlanov sneered,
refolding the paper and letting it drop onto the desk. "It will
take me several days. If I find something, I will reach you in
the normal way; don't contact me again."
Al-Sawabi closed the briefcase and rose from the chair.
"Your President seems to have forgotten who his real allies
are."
Orlanov failed to hide his contempt at the mention of
Gorbachev. "So it would appear." He crossed to the door and,
as he opened it, turned and faced the smaller man. "One more
thing, my price for doing this service will be half a million up
front and one million on delivery. I trust you can meet my
costs?"
Al-Sawabi’s smile was sardonic but still self-deprecating.
"As you wish, Major."
Closing the office door, the Russian returned to his leather
chair and picked the single sheet of paper off the polished
desktop. The money was a bonus; he would take the risk
because Gorbachev and Shevarndnadze were going to side
with the Americans. He would take the risk even though Al-
Sawabi made his skin crawl.
The files he needed would have the highest security
clearance and it would take time and money to gain access. He
knew he could not chance using the phone. No, he would
have to drive down to Leningrad tonight and speak with his

77
contact. Sighing, he picked up the phone, called the Intourist
Business Centre and cancelled his dinner date.
***
The Metropol Hotel was a relic of the Tsarist past, an
impressive granite building that at one time must have exuded
aristocratic opulence but, as with most post-communist
buildings, it had suffered over the intervening seventy years.
The crystal chandeliers still hung from the hand-painted
plaster ceilings but even their grandeur could not disguise the
threadbare carpets or the worn and faded wall coverings. The
furniture was a mix of modern and old, as were the people
who now sat in the expansive dining room.
Capriotti looked around the vast, high-ceilinged room.
The waiters were dressed in white dinner jackets and black
bow ties. Along the side of one wall stood the servers who
brought the food out from the kitchen on highly polished
silver salvers. The servers appeared to be generally younger
than the waiters and were not allowed to wear dinner jackets
or provide silver service at the table. Capriotti absently
wondered how the hotel’s communist patrons had balanced
their classless, egalitarian society with this two-tier pecking
order.
He stood up as Natasha returned to the table, not for the
first time amused that women the world over found it
necessary to visit the little room whenever they first entered a
restaurant. He had often speculated as to whether there was a
female gene which compelled them to check their appearance
and powder their nose. He held her chair and then pushed it
in as she sat down. Her blonde hair was tied up and held in
place with an attractive brooch and around her throat was a
black choker, which complimented the simple cream coloured
dress that fell to her ankles.
"You look beautiful," he said, sitting down again. "I really
didn’t think you would come tonight."
She smiled, her bright blue eyes sparkling in the

78
candlelight. "You obviously underestimate your persuasive
charms."
The menu was in both Russian and English, Capriotti
finding it difficult to believe anyone would pay one hundred
and fifty dollars for lobster on the shell and silently praying
that the Chronicle’s accountant had suddenly found a sense of
humour. The waiter took their order, Capriotti nodding when
asked if he would like see the wine list. He asked Natasha what
she preferred and then ordered a reasonably priced French
Chardonnay.
Their thinly sliced fresh salmon and sea prawns arrived
several minutes later, the wine waiter following behind and
showing the bottle before opening it with a flourish and
pouring a small amount into Capriotti’s glass. Tasting it, he
nodded and then waited as both glasses were filled, the bottle
was placed in an ornate silver bucket full of ice and the wine
waiter again retired.
"What shall we drink to?" he asked, raising his glass.
"How about the new openness?"
He tasted the wine and wondered whether it really was
French. "You agree with glasnost?"
"I agree with anything that allows the Russian people
freedom of choice. We’re tired of being told what to do and
when to do it. Gorbachev has changed that. Whatever
happens over the next few years, there’s no going back now. He
has set a runaway train in motion and nothing must be
allowed to derail it."
"Does everyone think like you do?"
"Probably not." She smiled. "Change is difficult. The
people of my mother’s generation have been told what to do
since birth, they find the new freedoms confusing and often
frightening."
"Is your mother still alive?"
A sudden sadness misted her eyes. "She passed away several
years ago. My father died just after I was born and so for most
of her adult life she struggled to bring me up."

79
 "I never knew my father either," Capriotti said. "I can’t
imagine how difficult it must have been for your mother."
She smiled again but this time it was reflective and faraway.
Capriotti finished his salmon and sat back as the waiter
removed the plates and refilled their crystal goblets. He
returned a few seconds later with the wild boar and Natasha’s
chicken salad; her sensible choice a relief and one which
should hopefully impress the Chronicle’s accountant.
"Do you ever wonder what your life might have been like
if you had known your father?" she suddenly asked, looking at
the American over the rim of her glass.
"Sometimes, although it was probably more difficult for my
mother. He’d briefly come into her life and then disappeared.
It was the beginning of the war and one of those moments you
regret for the rest of your life." He hesitated, realising what he
had just said. "Not that I think she regretted having me." He
laughed, cutting a slice of boar. "My grandfather was furious
and sent her away for the last months of the pregnancy. Later,
they told everyone my father had died in the war."
"Have you never tried to find him?" she asked, idly moving
the chicken around her plate with the heavy silver fork. It was
Capriotti’s turn to smile sadly.
"I wanted to but she knew nothing about him, except his
first name. They met at some nondescript office party and
later that night I was conceived. He was gone the following
morning and she never saw or heard from him again; nine
months later I came along. I remember as a teenager feeling
very angry with her."
"She must have felt guilty."
"I don’t think I really appreciated how hard it was for her."
"Is she still alive?"
Capriotti chuckled. "Alive and kicking. Several years ago, I
tried to get her to move down to Dallas; she’s nearly seventy
now and really feels the cold. Could I persuade her to leave her
old draughty apartment? Could I hell. She’s more worried
about me and my health than her own."

80
 "My mother was just the same." The smile was back but
this time without the sadness in her eyes. "She used to fuss and
worry over me, even after I went to university. I would come
home most weekends and she’d have small food parcels neatly
wrapped and ready for me to take back on the Sunday night.
She couldn’t afford it, but the small box was always sitting on
the table when I arrived."
"What happened to your father, he must have been quite
young when he died?"
"Mid forties. According to my mother, they were very
happy, although I’m not so sure. He was away a lot of the time
on official business. I’ve a feeling her memories softened as the
years went past. Would you like to see his picture?"
He nodded, watching as she pulled an old black and white
photo from the back of her wallet and handed it across the
table. Capriotti stared down at the old picture, a cold
sensation washing over him: he had never seen, never held a
photo of his own father. The man smiling up from the picture
was dressed in an ill-fitting suit and standing with his arm
around an attractive looking young woman. She was staring
up at the man and Capriotti could almost feel the pride in her
eyes.
He pointed at the woman on the left of the picture. "Your
mother?"
"Yes. It was taken outside the Leningrad museum."
"A handsome couple." He handed back the photograph. "I
can see where their daughter gets her good looks."
Her eyes danced with mischief. "Are all Americans so
obvious?"
"Only those nearing fifty who don't often get the chance to
dine out with a beautiful young lady," he replied and then
added as an afterthought, "I can understand why your boy
friend might be possessive."
A dark cloud seemed to descend over the table, the
reference to Orlanov causing her smile to disappear, her deep
blue eyes suddenly cold and avoiding contact as she replaced

81
the faded photograph in her handbag. The waiter interrupted
their mutual discomfort, clearing away the plates and asking
whether they would like some coffee. Natasha nodded
woodenly as Capriotti ordered a brandy, lit a cigarette and
wished to hell he’d made no mention of her boyfriend. The
mood had definitely changed, her body language now tense
and defensive.
"Why did you decide to come to Moscow?" he asked
lamely.
"Why not?" Her tone was clipped and guarded, as if
suddenly remembering that the American across the table was
a journalist.
"I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned his name."
"No, you shouldn’t have. I really don't think it’s any of your
business." Her lips were now pursed and angry, a slight flush
touching her cheeks.
The brandy and coffee arrived but it was obvious the
evening was over. He called for the bill and when it came
handed over his credit card, signed without bothering to check
the total and then ordered a cab. They sat in silence, the
embarrassed looking waiter eventually returning with the card
and informing them that the taxi was outside. Natasha got up
and, without looking at Capriotti, strode over the floor to the
cloakroom, retrieved her belongings and then walked into the
magnificent open foyer. He offered to help with the coat, her
cool actions making it obvious that she did not need or want
his assistance.
"Thank you for a nice evening, I’ll manage to get home by
myself."
"Is he waiting for you?" Capriotti blurted out, anger now
replacing contrition.
"He’s in Leningrad on business, if you must know."
Capriotti wondered how he could have let the evening go
so terribly wrong. "I’ll ask the driver to drop you off at your
apartment. I’m not having you going home alone."
"I’ll be fine," she said firmly.

82
 He grabbed her arm and spun her around. Her eyes flashed
angrily.
"Listen, I’m sorry I spoiled the evening but I’m not going
to let you go home alone."
She looked up into his eyes, her face softening. "I’m sorry
too. I’m behaving like a spoilt child, it was a lovely evening."
She gripped his hand and gave it a quick squeeze as the
doorman held open the door of the cab. The drive back
towards the Intourist took ten minutes. Capriotti stared out of
the window and wondered why the young woman beside him
had suddenly come into his life. Her small apartment was
several blocks behind the Intourist and shared with one of the
hotel receptionists. The cab stopped outside the bleak looking
building. At least, he thought, she did not yet live with
Orlanov.
They got out and Capriotti paid the driver. "I’ll walk from
here," he explained, seeing her quizzical look. "I want to clear
my head and the fresh air will do me good." He watched the
lights of the cab as it disappeared back into the blackness of
the night.
"It’s not safe to walk alone after dark."
"I’m sure it’s no worse than Central Park," he replied
lightly, doing up the buttons of his woollen coat. "I’d a lovely
evening and promise never to mention you know who again."
She smiled, leaned forward and softly brushed his lips with
hers. He wanted to hold her close but she was gone before the
thought could properly formulate.
The walk back to the hotel was cold and took longer than
he’d expected, the streetlights either broken or switched off, the
sidewalk ice covered and making it difficult to keep his footing.
His thoughts went to Orlanov and the obvious hold he had
over Natasha. Not that it mattered, he would be gone in a few
days and both she and the club owner would be nothing but a
distant memory. As he walked, he tried to convince himself she
meant nothing to him but, by the time he reached the hotel, he
knew he was kidding no one, least of all himself.

83
 ***
Capriotti was already in bed and trying to avoid the dream
when Illanovitch got back to the office. If nothing else, he
admired the American’s perseverance. Dinner for two at the
Metropol Hotel was equivalent to one month’s salary for the
policeman. For that kind of money, he could buy his wife and
daughter the new boots and clothes they needed to see them
through the winter.
He switched on the computer terminal and then prowled
the room waiting for it to boot up before punching in his
password. He typed in Natasha Kerchenko and then watched as
the database offered him options. He typed in Leningrad and
then the girl’s identity number, waiting impatiently until the
link was finally made and her file came up on the screen.
There was something he wanted to check. He pulled her
mother’s name up and then cross-referenced it with the girl’s
birth certificate; the computer searched again and threw up
another Kerchenko. Illanovitch noted down the name,
surprised that there was no associated identity number. He
came out of the file and re-entered the new name, again
choosing Leningrad as the field location. The computer
searched for a full five minutes before coming back with No
File Found.
The policeman leaned back in his seat and pondered. He
typed in Moscow and waited, the computer again coming back
with No File Found. Illanovitch moved out of the civil service
database and typed in the password for the Soviet Military. He
narrowed the field to men known to have died before nineteen
sixty-five. The screen danced into life; it had found twenty six
records for men called Alexander Kerchenko. He called up
their place and date of birth but could find no connection
between any of the men on the screen and the girl at the
Intourist.
He was tempted to pull up the KGB database but knew he
needed higher authority. He also knew that without official
clearance, the KGB mainframe would automatically record his

84
access code and user number and, within minutes, an
unmarked car would be outside his office. He pulled up the
girl’s file again, there had to be something he had missed. He
clicked onto her university records and again read through the
impressive list of qualifications, there was absolutely no doubt
she was both bright and intelligent. He then checked back
over her school records; she had never been out of the top half
of her class. He pulled up her internal passport number and
checked the application date. He assumed the Leningrad
shipping company had sponsored the application since it was
unusual for a young girl to be permitted a passport, even one
that only allowed her to travel within Russia. Pulling up their
records, he confirmed that they had indeed applied on her
behalf and then went back into the Civil Service database and
called up the original application they’d submitted to the
Immigration department. He typed in her identity number
and waited. Several seconds later the form appeared on the
screen.
By now he was beginning to lose interest and nearly missed
the box for previous visa applications. She had travelled to East
Germany in early nineteen sixty-four. He sat back and rubbed
his eyes. She would have needed a passport or some form of
visa to travel and, since she had never had an internal passport
until nineteen eighty-six, how had she left the country? He
went back into the mother’s file and retrieved her identity
number. Using it, he re-entered the Immigration database.
Damn, how had he missed it? The mother had applied for a
four-day visa in December nineteen sixty-three for both
herself and the daughter.
Illanovitch scratched his head. He knew that Berlin in the
sixties was off limits to most Russian nationals because it had
become too easy to cross to the West, at least before the Wall
was built. He checked the visa application date. She had
applied on December fifteenth and had travelled the following
month. Twenty-five days between application and travel date.
Illanovitch whistled aloud. Even now, it would take a

85
minimum of three months between application submission
and the granting of a visa. Twenty-five years ago it would have
taken many months, perhaps even years.
East Berlin... Why had she gone and who had cut through
the red tape on her behalf? He pulled up her file again; she was
nobody. He sat back in the chair and closed his tired eyes; it
was time to go home. He would manage a few hours sleep
before having to get up and serve breakfast at the Intourist.
East Berlin. He leaned forward and checked her file for
relatives and known acquaintances; there were none.
Illanovitch got up, crossed the room and looked down onto
the quiet street. The traffic was nonexistent. East Berlin...
Something clicked at the back of his mind. He returned to the
screen and checked again. Alexander Kerchenko had no
identity number. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t Russian. He
came out of the database and pulled up the log-on numbers
for the security services. He scrolled down the list until he
came to the one he needed. He punched in the numbers and
waited. It asked for a password. Knowing that his own would
be rejected, he pulled the Orlanov file from the top drawer of
his desk.
Five weeks earlier he had persuaded his superior to request
the man’s file from the KGB. He had not held out much hope
but several days later a package had arrived. Illanovitch had
found several strange numbers scribbled on the back of one of
the pages and, on a hunch, had punched them into his
computer. He felt sure the KGB clerk who had sent the
package would have been taken out and shot if anyone knew
what he had found.
He typed in the numbers and waited, the computer
seeming to strain as it searched through the huge database.
Finally, and somewhat reluctantly, it agreed to give him access.
On the screen in front of him was the database of the East
German secret police, the Stasi. He typed in Alexander
Kerchenko and watched as the terminal searched through the
database of files and finally threw up five names. Two of them

86
had died in the fifties. The third was still alive. He pulled up
the other two files, swearing aloud as he realised that
everything was written in German. He had studied German at
school but that had been fifteen years ago. He scrolled down
the first file. The man appeared to be a business type who had
lived in Warsaw; he had died in nineteen seventy-one.
He pulled up the second file. Alexander Johan Kerchenko.
His date of birth was given as March fifth, nineteen twenty,
the place, a small suburb in Berlin. He scrolled further down
the header page but, although he could tell it was a large file,
the computer would not allow him to go behind the front
sheet. He tried several back door routes but all access was
denied. He finally decided to print off the top page and, as the
machine began to spit into life, his eyes ran over the moving
sheet, stopping as they fell on the man’s date of death.
Folding the piece of paper, he placed it inside his jacket
pocket before locking the office door and then hurrying down
to the ground floor. The night was cold and getting colder and
it would not be long before the Skoda would fail to start in the
morning. As he drove back across the quiet city to the
carriageway and on towards the twelfth floor flat where his
wife was sleeping, his mind again turned to the recorded date
of death, his brain trying to recall why it rang a bell.
***
The dream, when sleep came, was the same as before, the same
as a hundred times before; it began with the phone call and the
hospital administrator telling him there had been an accident
and that he should come to Houston immediately. Then the
drive, the wet night, the black road, the long hours wondering,
praying, screaming at the wind and rain as it buffeted and
lashed at the car. Then the new building, the Accident and
Emergency doors, the run through the corridors, the girl on
reception and finally Susan, her hair matted, her face blood-
stained, the bruise above her right eye.
Then, as always, the scene would change and Julie would be

87
there, her auburn hair brushed and sitting on her shoulders,
her smile serene and slightly bemused, her eyes hazel green and
wide, so, so wide. He would stretch out his arms, pleading for
her to run into them.
As always, she would turn away and suddenly he was
standing over the bed, the sheet pulled back, her small body
broken and bloody, her eyes closed, the hastily placed bandage
covering the back of her head where the side-pillar had
crushed her skull.
The scene would change again and he was standing over the
grave, Susan's husband on crutches, his ex-wife crying, their
son standing alone and looking angrily at both his parents.
As night turned to dawn, John Capriotti moaned in his
sleep, the dream tugging at the pain and hurt that he had tried
to bury, had tried to ignore, but which would never go away.

88
Monday, November 26th

C hecking his watch, Orlanov relaxed in the back of the

Mercedes and drew heavily on the Cuban cigar. They
would not be back in Moscow until nearly ten but at least they
would miss the rush hour traffic. He lowered the window an
inch and blew smoke into the cold night air. The Mercedes
was purring at a steady one hundred and sixty kilometres, the
soft pink glow of the dash lights strangely reassuring as he
stretched out in the warmth and comfort of the thick leather
seat. He smiled. His contact had asked for fifty thousand
dollars, Orlanov finally persuading him that thirty five was a
fair exchange for the information he was seeking. The other
man had promised to begin the search first thing in the
morning. Orlanov smiled again. It would make little
difference to the outcome of the war, even if it turned out that
both Bush and Major were screwing Thatcher. Nothing could
deflect the West from crossing the Kuwaiti border. In truth, he
doubted whether either man would have a political secret dark
enough to save Saddam. It had been his experience that you
could only bend the rules, not break them; Al-Sawabi was
clutching at straws but, and as long as he was prepared to foot
the bill, who cared?
He opened the window again and blew more smoke into the
Russian countryside. The snow was holding off and he hoped
that they would have a clear run all the way to the capital. His
thoughts turned to Natasha and her lithe body and pert breasts,
the same breasts that had persuaded him to try her out at the
club. He liked bright, intelligent women and she had the added
advantage of being extremely attractive. He had first met her in
the shipper’s office down by the Leningrad docks, although he
hadn’t noticed her until the last but one trip and the problem
with getting his new BMW through customs. There had been
some niggling hold-up with the paperwork and she had

89
managed to smooth things over. As a reward, he had offered to
take her for dinner and she had accepted. The night had gone
well and he had hoped she might accept his offer to return to
the hotel room for a night cap. She had smiled coyly but then
declined his invitation and this had only served to make him all
the more determined to bed her. He had taken her out again
on his last trip, even suggesting that her talents were wasted in
the run-down dockside office. They had drunk champagne and
he had perhaps been a little more open than he should have,
telling her about his business interests and even mentioning
that he had once been an Intelligence Major in the KGB. She
had seemed fascinated and that night had let him kiss and
fondle her breasts.
He had left Leningrad the following morning and would
have thought nothing more about her, genuinely surprised
when she turned up at the club the following week. He had
offered her a job as a dancer and, over the ensuing six weeks,
had taken her to the best clubs and restaurants in Moscow. He
liked her company and the way she managed herself with his
business associates, but she had still not allowed him into her
bed and this was now beginning to rankle. He enjoyed the
chase, as well as any man, but eight weeks of time and effort
and still no sex was beginning to annoy him. He had intended
forcing the situation overnight but Al-Sawabi and the trip
down to Leningrad had put things on hold, at least for the
time being. Not that he had been devoid of sex over the
intervening weeks, Karina being as willing and as
accommodating as normal. No, the act of sex was not the
issue, it was the fact that he could not have what he most
wanted. Dmitri Orlanov was not used to waiting. He smiled
again. Tonight she would open her legs, regardless of whether
or not she wanted to.
***
"Good night?" Daniels asked, joining his friend at the
breakfast table.

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 "Not bad."
"Why do I think you might be playing with fire?"
"You tell me," Capriotti said, looking up from a week-old
copy of the Herald Tribune.
"You seem to be spending a lot of time around the hotel
business centre?"
"It’s my job." Capriotti's eyes were again studying the
paper.
"Okay, please yourself. Just make sure you have more than
a Swiss army knife when he pulls out that cannon he keeps
between his legs."
He folded the paper and placed it on the table. "I assume
your cryptic little comment refers to Orlanov?"
"Who else have we met who pistol-whips drunks for fun?"
"We went for dinner at the Metropol. I took her home and
then walked back to the hotel. Anything else?"
"Whilst you were gallivanting around town last night, I
asked a colleague over at NBC if he’d heard of Dmitri Orlanov
and guess what?"
"Go on, you’re going to tell me, whether I like it or not."
"Our friend was a card carrying KGB Major until he was
thrown out, apparently for anti-government sentiment."
"So?"
"Excuse me, am I talking to myself here? I said he was KGB
which roughly translated means he was trained to kill
foreigners. I realise this might come as a surprise to you, but
you don't lose those skills just because you’ve left the security
services."
"What’s he going to do, waste an American journalist for
buying his girlfriend supper?"
"Is it really worth finding out?" Daniels said, startled by his
friend’s apparent indifference. "The girl’s a stripper, for Christ
sakes, she probably does it for fifty bucks a night!"
Capriotti dropped the paper on the table and stood up, his
eyes hard and cold. "I appreciate your concern, Dan, but
suggest you keep your face out of my business."

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 Daniels stared open-mouthed as his erstwhile friend
stormed towards the lobby and the elevator.
***
"Any messages?" Orlanov asked as he reached the top of the
stairs and Karina’s desk.
"They’re in your tray. Do you want coffee?" He nodded,
pulling off his coat and unlocking his office door.
Karina switched on the kettle, poured ground coffee beans
into the filter, placed the imported Kona jug on the hot plate
and sat back down at her desk.
Suddenly the office door flew open and Orlanov, his face
flushed and angry, strode across the corridor and placed a
handwritten message on the desk in front of his secretary.
"What the hell’s this?"
"Someone called about nine and suggested you might want
to check on the whereabouts of your girlfriend last night.
Something about the Lobster Grill, the Metropol Hotel and
an American journalist."
"Get the manager of the Metropol on the phone," he
stormed, returning to his office and slamming the door.
Karina smiled as she picked up the receiver and dialled the
number for the hotel.
***
The phone continued to ring, Capriotti ignoring it until the
caller finally rang off. He was sitting at the small table beside
the window and trying to formulate his piece for the
Chronicle. Daniels was probably right; the girl was poorly paid
and sleeping with a gangster, fifty bucks would be more than
she would earn for a month’s work at the Intourist. There was
a knock at the door. He sighed, got up and crossed the carpet.
Daniels was standing outside.
"Friends?" The older man smiled sheepishly.
Capriotti grabbed his arm and pulled him into the room.
"Come in you old fart. Never mind me, I was born an

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asshole." He opened the small fridge and pulled two Johnny
Walker miniatures off the top shelf. "I don't know about you,
but I need a drink."
"What you do is none of my business, but I do worry about
you."
Capriotti smiled, opened the icebox, dropped two cubes
into each glass, handed one to Daniels and then clinked
glasses. "Friends, okay? "
"Friends," Daniels returned.
***
Sergei Illanovitch was back at the office when Orlanov’s
car arrived at the Intourist and so he missed the two
men who caught the elevator to the business centre and
informed Natasha Kerchenko that she should come with
them. When she began to object, the smaller of the men
opened his jacket and showed her the brown leather
shoulder holster and the black gun barrel that protruded
from the bottom.
Illanovitch had tossed and turned during his few hours in
bed, finally deciding it was worth the risk and calling the small
office above the seedy club. He wanted to pull Orlanov out
into the open and see if he would make a mistake. He knew
he might be endangering the girl’s health but, and when all
was said and done, she must have known the type of man she
was getting into bed with.
***
"I don't care," Orlanov was shouting over the phone, "just get
me all the information you have on the journalist. I want it
over here in an hour, got that?" The man on the other end of
the phone acknowledged the request and hung up.
The ex-KGB Major paced the room, his temper growing in
intensity as the minutes ticked by, his feelings see-sawing
between betrayal, humiliation and, worst of all, the fact that
he should have seen it coming. The American had shown his

93
interest toward the girl at the club. He could still picture the
man as he had strode across the floor and spoken with her at
the bar. No respect. Orlanov required and demanded respect
from everyone; the American had abused his hospitality and
would have to pay. He looked down from the window as the
Mercedes drew up alongside the warehouse entrance,
watching as the girl was marched into the building and
mentally counting off the seconds as the elevator crawled up
to the top floor.
The soft knock when it came only served to fan the flames.
"Come in," he barked, Karina opening the door and showing
Natasha into the sumptuously appointed room. He pointed at
the couch. "Sit down, over there." His voice was softer but still
menacing as he slowly rose and moved around to the front of
the desk. The girl now sitting on the leather couch looked
concerned, not frightened, her eyes holding his as he prowled
the room, finally settling down beside her. Despite himself, he
found her defiance breathtaking. She really was a beautiful
woman.
"Karina got a call this morning," he whispered, taking her
hand. "I want to know where you were last night."
"Is that why I’m here?" She sounded surprised, a tinge of
annoyance in her tone.
He leapt from the couch and stood directly over her.
"Answer the question, who were you with?"
Natasha shrank back into the leather couch, instinctively
afraid that he might strike her. She could see the spittle
forming around his lips and the flaring of his nostrils. His face
was white, his hands shaking with barely controlled fury. "One
of the hotel guests asked me to dinner. I really didn’t think you
would mind."
"That American journalist from the Club?"
"Yes, John Capriotti."
"Did you sleep with him?"
Her eyes flashed with anger. She pulled her hand back and
tried to slap his face but he caught it before she could strike

94
him. He squeezed her fingers, his eyes cold and cruel as she
winced in pain. "Did you fuck him?" he snarled.
"Have you fucked me?" she answered hoarsely, trying to
pull her hand away from his cruel grip. He was struck by her
emphatic use of the word. In the two months he had known
her she had never said anything that came close to a
profanity.
"You don't go out to dinner with anyone except me," he
snarled, tightening his grip on her trapped fingers and twisting
them. "You don't see or speak to anyone but me. Do you
understand that?"
Her deep blue eyes flashed again. "You don't own me. If I
no longer wish to be with you, then there’s nothing you, or
anyone else can do about it."
The slap, when it came, was vicious and hard. He used the
back of his right hand, the ring on his index finger raking her
cheek and drawing blood. As her head flew back her free hand
raked at his neck, Orlanov bellowing in pain as sharp nails
ripped at the soft skin below his open shirt collar. He pulled
away, balled his fist and then hit her hard under the right eye,
the brutal punch knocking her back onto the couch, her eye
immediately beginning to swell and close.
Dragging her up by the hair, he hit her again with the back
of his hand. She fell to the floor and he lashed out with his
foot, catching her in the solar plexus. She instinctively rolled
up into the foetal position but he again pulled her up by her
hair and threw her bodily across the floor, her forehead
crashing into the base of the heavy oak desk. The blow dazed
and confused her and she missed the final kick that brought
welcome blackness.
An hour later she was roughly thrown onto the bed in her
small apartment, barely aware of the two men ransacking her
room. Before leaving, they systematically emptied the contents
of each drawer and shelf onto the well-worn carpet, pulled the
covers off the bed and dumped them in the middle of the floor
and then opened all the ground floor windows. They left her

95
curled up on the bed, her whole body hurting, her right eye
closed, her face blood-streaked and raw. Later, when her
anguished sobs did eventually surface, they were from deep
down and a time long ago in the past.
***
Capriotti had been surprised to find the door to the business
centre locked. Taking the elevator back down to the ground
floor, he spoke with the receptionist who confirmed that
Natasha had been in earlier and then added that two men had
come past before lunch and she had left with them. Thanking
her, he returned to his room. Two men; did Orlanov have
anything to do with her sudden and unexpected
disappearance? Although he had not admitted it, Daniels’
revelation about his KGB connection had come as a shock, his
years as a journalist having taught him to respect the feared
counter-intelligence organisation. Picking up the phone, he
dialled his friend’s room but there was no answer; it was
almost five and already dark outside, the Reuters’ man was
probably still at his office.
He sat pondering his options for several more minutes
before coming to a decision. Dragging his coat from the old
wardrobe, he took the elevator back down to the ground floor,
stepped out into the cold evening air and began to retrace his
steps from the previous night. The roads were becoming busy
with rush hour traffic and he had to keep to the sidewalk and
slip and slide along the uneven icy surface until he was again
outside Natasha’s apartment block.
Standing on the bottom step, he looked up at the five-
storey, brown stone building and tried to remember if she had
told him which floor she lived on. The front door was locked,
the outside temperature now well below zero, the growing
wind-chill factor dropping it even further. He pushed his
hands beneath the coat flaps and stamped cold feet on the
well-worn slabs, his eyes peering along the dark streets still
busy with people trudging home from their mundane office

96
jobs. He felt lost and out of place, a middle-aged American
standing self-consciously at the bottom of a young Russian
girl’s steps.
He watched the passing cars for several more minutes and
was about to return to the hotel when a young mother pushing
a pram stopped in front of the building. She climbed the steps
and unlocked the door, wrapped her baby in blankets and then
carried him into the building. Several seconds passed before
she returned and tried to manhandle the heavy pram to the
top of the steps. Capriotti moved forward, lifted the front
wheels and motioned to the woman to lift the other end. Once
inside the dark hallway, she retrieved the crying baby from the
cold stone floor and thanked him.
"Natasha Kerchenko?" He motioned towards the stairs with
a shrug of his shoulders. The young mother pointed to the far
end of the dark hall. He smiled his thanks and left her to carry
the baby upstairs. There were two doors on either side of the
damp-smelling corridor. He knocked on the first and then
tried the handle. It was locked. He moved down to the second
and repeated his actions, the old door opening with a tired
creak as he cautiously stepped inside. The apartment was dark
and very cold, the only light coming from the window and the
headlights of passing cars. The floor was littered with
upturned drawers, clothes, books and ornaments and, as he
moved closer to the window, he could see that it was open.
Stretching up, he pulled down the old sash frame and then
crossed to a second window and closed it as well. Treading
quietly and carefully, he slowly manoeuvred around the walls
of the room until he came to a light switch. He surveyed the
room in a state of astonishment, his eyes taking in the jumble
of household contents scattered across the floor. Turning, he
picked his way gingerly over the littered carpet and through
the short hallway to what appeared to be a bedroom. It too was
in darkness and he blindly stretched his hand across the wall
until he found another light switch.
She was curled up on top of the bed, her face buried in the

97
pillow. He stepped over her scattered belongings, crossed to
the window, closed it and then sat down on the bed. She
groaned, slowly beginning to stir as he carefully turned her
over onto her back and took in the full extent of her damaged
face. Her hair was blood-matted, the closed eye dark purple
and badly swollen, a long jagged cut bisecting her left cheek.
Capriotti felt the rage well up inside as he found the small
kitchen and a one-ring gas stove, filled an old tin kettle from
the only tap and looked around for some clean linen. He
found a plastic bowl on the floor and an old blouse, which he
quickly tore into strips. The kettle seemed to take an age to
boil but finally he poured the steaming water into the bowl
and returned to the bedroom.
Natasha was still lying on her back, her eyes half-closed, her
breathing laboured and raspy as he cleared a space on the carpet
and knelt down by the side of the bed. Soaking the strips of
cloth, he carefully began to wash the dried blood from around
her eye and along the jagged cut on her cheek. She stirred again,
her cold hands moving protectively to her face. She began to
shiver violently. The room temperature was well below freezing.
Getting up off his knees, he found some blankets in the
middle of the living room floor and covered the girl on the bed.
She continued to shiver and, once her face was clean, he raked
through the debris lying in the kitchen and eventually found
what looked like a tube of antiseptic cream. Returning to the
bedroom, he gently applied it to the open gash, his voice soft and
reassuring as she instinctively pulled away from the stinging pain.
The small bedroom seemed to be getting colder and he
rummaged around the mess in the living room but there was
no heater and no apparent means of warming up the ice-cold
rooms. Finally, Capriotti removed his coat, placed it on top of
the bed covers, slipped off his shoes and then crept in beside
her. Carefully turning her towards him, he pulled her close
and placed her arms around his waist. She moaned and he
heard the whimpering sounds of a small defenceless child, the
memories suddenly flooding back and engulfing him.

98
Tuesday, November 27th

"I didn’t expect you to get back to me so quickly," Orlanov

said stiffly, looking at the clock on his bedside cabinet.
The illuminated figures read four thirty-five. "Nor did I expect
you to call me at home. Do you know what time it is?"
"Did you access the East Germans' mainframe database last
night?" the caller said, ignoring the question.
"You know I didn’t, I was with you."
"Someone using your password logged onto the Stasi
database at...hold on." The line went silent and Orlanov could
hear papers rustling in the background. "Three fifteen."
"I wasn’t back in Moscow until well after ten. How do you
know it was my password?"
"Trust me, it was your security password and access code.
Give me a few more hours and I might be able to track down
the log-on modem. Who else knows your password?"
"No one."
"Well someone does," the caller said.
"I’ll check around at my end. Let me know as soon as you
trace the modem user."
"Of course," the other man said and then added, almost as
an afterthought. "Any idea who Alexander Kerchenko is?"
"Kerchenko?"
"Yeah, whoever used your code tried to pull his file off the
database, but I don't think they got past the header sheet
firewall. Something else, it’s one hell of a file - it nearly filled
two disks. If you want, I’ll send it up."
"What's on it?"
"I’m not sure, it’s in German."
"Send it anyway and call me as soon as you find the access
modem," Orlanov growled, hanging up the phone. Karina
stirred as he threw back the covers, pulled on his dressing
gown and traipsed down the stairs to the kitchen. Switching

99
on the kettle, he shuffled a cigarette from the pack on the
counter and went over what his contact had told him. Orlanov
prided himself in being a professional and, if nothing else,
thirty years in the KGB had taught him there was no such
thing as coincidence; Natasha was somehow connected to the
disks, on that he would bet his life.
***
The long cold night was turning to dawn as Natasha began to
stir. She was still cradled in his arms, her breathing now soft
and rhythmic. His anger returned as he surveyed her bruised
face in the greying light, the only consolation being the cut on
her cheek was now clean and not quite as inflamed. Neither
was it as deep as he had first feared, which meant it would
probably not require stitches.
He had dozed fitfully during the long hours, his mind
trying to make sense of the feelings growing inside. The dream
had come but he had woken before it could take hold and run
its course. She stirred again, her good eye slowly opening and
taking in the room. Her head turned and looked up at
Capriotti, her senses suddenly realising where she was and
whom she was lying beside. She began to struggle.
"Easy, Natasha," he said as she pulled away from his arms,
her body suddenly tense and frightened. Her hands went to
her swollen face and, as they did, large tears began to well up
in her eyes. "It’s okay," he said gently, pulling back the blankets
and moving to the edge of the bed, her hands sliding
automatically beneath the covers and checking that she was
still wearing clothes.
"What are you doing here?" she said, her voice hoarse and
croaky.
"I found you freezing to death on the bed. Your face was
gashed and covered in dried blood and all the windows were
open." He got up and crossed to the door. "There weren’t any
heaters in this morgue and so I got under the covers to keep
you warm." He paused, allowing her to digest the information

100
before asking who had attacked her. The tears began to fall as
she remembered and Capriotti bent down, picked one of the
cotton strips off the floor and wiped her eyes.
"Someone told Dmitri’s secretary that you’d taken me for
dinner. Two men came to the hotel and dragged me over to his
office. When I didn’t give him what he wanted, he did this."
She pointed to her face, the tears now in full flow. "At first, I
thought it might have been you who called Karina, but then I
remembered she doesn’t speak any English."
"At least that's something," he replied as she tried to get up,
the pain and sudden dizziness forcing her back down onto the
pillow. "Whoever did this, also trashed your apartment." He
crossed to the bedroom door and opened it. "I thought you
said you lived with another girl?"
"She’s away on holiday."
"I’m going to make us some coffee. Stay where you are, I’ll
be back in a minute."
She nodded weakly as he picked his way along the corridor
to the kitchen, his mind wondering what it would be like to
kill another human being.
***
Orlanov was already sitting at his office desk as the kettle
began to boil in Natasha’s small kitchen, the overnight call
from Leningrad having disturbed him in more ways than one.
He had sat up and smoked half a pack of cigarettes before
Karina had come through and pulled him back to the
bedroom. He had again asked her if she recognised the man
who had left the message but she had shaken her head. Like
Natasha, he had already dismissed the idea that the American
was the caller. That left two options; the call was either
malicious or, one of the security services was following
Natasha, Capriotti or both.
He opened the thin file on his desk and re-read the
American’s details, but there was nothing in it that would
remotely interest any of the services. The last time he had been

101
to Russia was five years ago but even then he had only spent
three days in the capital. His newspaper columns were not
particularly anti-Communist and, if anything, he seemed
more critical of America and its own foreign policies. That left
Natasha and the mysterious Stasi file.
He steepled his fingers and slowly massaged tired temples,
his thoughts going back to Leningrad and the first time he had
met Natasha. Was it simply coincidence that she had latterly
turned up in Moscow? Orlanov pictured the second night
when she had let him remove her bra and fondle those
magnificent breasts. What had he told her over dinner? He
tried to recall their conversation but her breasts and several
bottles of expensive champagne had dominated the evening.
He had thought long and hard into the early hours, trying to
work out if she could have found and removed his password
and access codes. The answer was a definite no, he kept them
locked in his safe and the only time she had been in the office,
apart from yesterday, was when she came to ask for a job.
There was a knock on the door and Karina came in
carrying a pot of coffee and a copy of Pravda. "Konstantin and
that other thug are waiting outside," she said, pouring coffee
into his cup. He smiled. Karina Volkov had been with him for
several years and was not afraid to speak her mind; she was also
exceptionally good between the sheets. He watched and
wondered as she stirred in two heaped spoons of sugar.
"There really was a phone message, wasn’t there?" he asked,
standing up and moving around the desk. She looked up as he
moved across to the low table beside the couch.
"Why would I lie?"
"Maybe you want to keep me all to yourself?" He smiled,
his hand slipping under the short skirt and up between her
thighs.
"Your hand’s resting on my contract of employment," she
giggled, picking the pot off the table and straightening her
skirt. "Shall I send them in?"
He nodded, watching her slim hips as she crossed back to

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the door and held it open. Konstantin Gouzenko was short,
squat, and a serving NKVD officer, Orlanov certain that the
man’s lack of height was directly related to his pathological
hatred for people in general and women in particular. That he
was a sociopath had never been in any doubt. The second man
was almost a foot taller and Gouzenko’s NKVD partner and
constant shadow.
"I want you to return to the girl’s apartment and bring her
back over here."
The taller NKVD man looked quizzically at his partner. A
slow smile crossed Gouzenko’s lips. "We might have a slight
problem there," he said. Orlanov raised an arched eyebrow.
"You told us to make sure she wouldn’t give you any more
trouble. I don't think she will."
"I didn’t tell you to kill her," Orlanov spat, the anger
growing in the pit of his stomach.
"We didn’t, although whether she made it through the
night is debatable."
"Get over there and find out." Gouzenko shrugged his
shoulders and turned towards the door. "You’d better hope for
your sake that she’s still alive," Orlanov called after the two
men.
***
Capriotti had replaced some of Natasha’s belongings onto the
empty shelves. She was sitting up on the bed, his heavy
woollen coat now draped around her shoulders. The gash on
her cheek still looked red and angry but not infected. She was
clasping the warm coffee mug between cold hands.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he said, looking out of the
small bedroom window and onto the dirty, slush-covered lane
that ran down the back of the building. When she failed to
answer he turned and crossed back over to the bed. "I’ve met
his type before, Natasha. Men who treat women as nothing
more than chattels; step out of line and they try to beat them
into submission." He stroked her hair and then cupped her

103
chin gently in his left hand. "What made you fall for him?"
She pulled her head away, her eyes dull and unresponsive.
They sat in silence, both lost in their own thoughts.
"I was using him," she eventually said, her voice close to a
whisper. "When he first came to the office in Leningrad, he
seemed different and when he asked me out to dinner, I
accepted. We had a nice time but I thought no more about
him until several months later, when he again asked me out
but this time he was looking for more than just small talk. We
drank too much Champagne and he began to tell me about his
business interests and how he used KGB files to gain influence
and power."
"Blackmail."
"Call it what you like, he had access to all those files and so
I came up here to Moscow and asked him for a job and he said
I could dance in one of his dirty little clubs. I knew what he
wanted and that the only way I could hold his interest was to
play along."
"Why? What was so special about Orlanov?"
"Not Orlanov, the files. I wanted to gain access to the files."
Capriotti leaned back on the bed, remembering something
she had told him over dinner. "It’s your father, isn’t it?" The
metaphorical light bulb in his head was suddenly beginning to
glow. "You’re trying to find information on your father."
She nodded, leaning forward and placing the coffee mug on
the carpet. "He was born in Berlin in nineteen twenty and
lived there until the mid-fifties, which is around the time he
came to Leningrad."
"And where he met your mother?"
"She was young, impressionable and training as a specialist
nurse." A smile momentarily flickered across her bruised face.
"I suppose it was the archetypal nurse-patient relationship. I
don’t know anything about him, except what she told me,
which wasn’t much."
"Every time I broached the subject she would talk about
something else or tell me to leave the room. She became very

104
ill in the last year of her life, had smoked since I can remember
and I guess the cancer was inevitable. We couldn’t afford the
specialist doctors and so I nursed her at home."
"The night before she died she told me to bring her a
locked mother of pearl box she kept on the mantel above the
fireplace. I’d always wondered whether she really kept
anything inside… Anyway, she told me to remove the key
from around her neck and open it. It was empty, except for a
yellowed envelope and a faded black and white photograph…"
"The one you showed me the other night?" Capriotti
interrupted.
Shaking her head, she slipped her hand under the mattress,
pulled out a frayed envelope and handed it to him.
He fingered the thin paper. "Are you sure?"
She nodded.
He opened the flap and eased out a grainy black and white
photograph. On the back, in faded ink was scrawled the name,
Alexander Kerchenko and beneath the signature a date. He
turned it over and as he did the hairs on the back of his neck
stood on end, a cold shiver running down his spine. The man
in the photograph was the thirty fifth President of the United
States.
***
Washington in late November could be as cold as Moscow,
something the CIA man standing on the steps below the
Lincoln Memorial certainly did not doubt. There was five
inches of snow lying and more predicted for the weekend and
he knew he was far too old to be outside in these kinds of
temperatures. Maybe his wife was right and it was time to take
his pension and their son’s offer of a condominium in Fort
Lauderdale.
Eisenhower had been President when William Arthur
Reisberg had sworn his allegiance to the flag and, by definition,
to the Firm. He would be sixty-four in three months and had
served his country for the best part of thirty-five years.

105
 Looking back, it now seemed like another world when
Frank Harvey had walked into his Washington office and his
life. Frank Harvey: his first impressions of the man had been
mixed. Although quiet, he seemed to have an arrogance, a self-
belief that rankled. Reisberg had pulled his jacket before their
first meeting and tried to build a composite of the man. He
was comparatively young, or so Reisberg had thought at the
time. How old would he be now, mid-fifties? He had looked
nondescript then, someone who could blend into a crowd and
would never be picked out or remembered. Average height
with average features, there was nothing about him which
seemed to stick out in the mind.
Reisberg knew that Harvey had served in the Marines and
that he had been seconded to the Firm. His file had
commended his efforts in scouring the Cuban underground in
Miami and his part in the recruitment of some fifteen hundred
anti-Castro men. Later, it had been Harvey’s job to oversee the
training camps in Guatemala and help mould them into
Brigade 2506. It was this same man who later blamed the
CIA’s Director, Richard Bissell, and Kennedy for the disastrous
landings and the criminal lack of air support. Reisberg knew
that it was this documented hatred of the Kennedy
administration as well as his unique talents, which had first
brought him to Fulbright’s attention.
He stamped cold feet and again checked his watch, his
mind wondering if he would recognise him after all these
years, particularly when the man in question was a master of
deception and disguise. He was about to return to the warmth
of his car when a voice from the past whispered into his ear.
"I never liked Washington in November, Dallas always had
a more civilised climate." Reisberg started to turn but Harvey
placed a gloved hand on his shoulder. "Eyes forward, Bill,
there’s no need to get conversational; you never know who
might be watching."
"Careful as ever, eh, Frank?"
"It’s what keeps you alive," the other man said, removing

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his hand from Reisberg’s shoulder. "Your message said it was
urgent?"
"Last night, someone hacked into the East Germans'
mainframe and downloaded one of their files."
"I thought we were all supposed to be on the same side
these days?"
"And pigs might fly," Reisberg sneered, the CIA man
unable to keep the contempt from his voice. "Whoever hacked
in went for one particular file, a file we never knew existed."
Harvey tensed, sensing the past was suddenly rushing
towards him like a phantom train through a spectral tunnel.
"Kerchenko?"
Reisberg removed a small slip of paper from his coat pocket
and passed it over his left shoulder. "Fulbright’s mobile
number. We already have assets on the ground trying to trace
the modem user but he wants you to call tomorrow at midday.
It looks like we might have a situation on our hands."
"Get someone else to do your dirty work," Harvey snarled.
"The Deputy thought that might be your response and
suggested I remind you that certain Southern States have no
time limitations when it comes to capital murder."
Reisberg waited for an answer but Harvey had pocketed the
mobile number and was already blending in with the tourists
and brave Washingtonians taking in the grace and nobility of
one of their country’s most famous Presidents. Bill Reisberg
turned and, looking up at the imposing statue of Abraham
Lincoln, wondered whether Harvey appreciated the irony of
the meeting place – the venerable stone figure sitting on high
had also been assassinated.
***
"I don't understand," Capriotti said, turning the black and
white photograph over in his hands. "Where was this taken?"
"Overlooking Kransnaya Ploshchad, you can see one of the
gilded spires above his left shoulder."
"It can’t be Red Square," he replied, more to himself than

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to the girl beside him. "I don't remember Kennedy ever
coming to Moscow."
Before she could answer, they both heard a scraping noise
outside the apartment door, Natasha flinching as Capriotti put
a finger to his lips. They listened as someone roughly tried the
handle, cursed in Russian and then beat a fist on the outside
of the heavy wooden door. "Open up, bitch."
Natasha’s eyes rolled in fear as she recognised Gouzenko’s
high-pitched nasal voice. "It’s the man from the Intourist."
Gouzenko shouted again. "Open up or we’ll break it
down."
Although Capriotti could not understand what the Russian
was saying, the general thrust of his demand was pretty clear.
"Is there another way out of here?"
"Only the window."
Crossing to the sash frame, he forced it open and looked
out onto the deserted back lane. "Come on," he said, taking
Natasha’s arm and pulling her off the bed. He picked up his
coat and grabbed a thick sweater lying on the floor. "Put this
on." He stepped through the window, dropped the five feet to
the ground and then turned and helped her down. They heard
the doorframe begin to splinter as they reached the end of the
slush-soaked lane and the main road. "Which way?"
Natasha hesitated. "The hotel," she finally said, unable to
think of anything else. He grabbed her hand as they tried to
slip and slide along the sidewalk towards the hotel and relative
safety. A cab passed, and Capriotti stuck out a despairing arm,
the vigilant driver applying his brakes and almost side-swiping
a parked car as he slid to a stop. He wrenched open the door
and bundled a breathless Natasha into the back, listening as
she directed the driver to the hotel. They were already pulling
back out into the morning traffic when two figures, their guns
drawn, appeared at the end of the alleyway
"Change of plan," he said, "ask him to take us to the
Reuters’ office."
Natasha looked perplexed but didn’t argue, the driver

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nodding as she gave him the new instructions, Capriotti
continuing to watch through the back window as they drove
around Red Square towards the West side of the city. Craning
his neck to look up at the domes and spires of the massive
granite building, he pulled the black and white photo from an
inside pocket and stared again at the picture of Kennedy. She
was right, the man in the photo was definitely standing in
sight of the same Kransnaya Ploshchad.
Ten minutes later and the cab was sliding to a slushy halt
outside the Reuters’ building, Capriotti handing over a fistful
of rubles and then signalling to the grateful driver to keep the
change. They ran up the steps, flashed a Chronicle press card at
the security guard and asked which floor the news agency
office was on.
The modern building had Otis elevators and as they moved
efficiently and silently upwards to the sixth floor, Capriotti
explained whom he wanted her to meet and why. The Reuters’
office was at the far end of the building and they opened a
heavy plate glass door with an engraving of a globe on it and
entered a plush reception area where a well-dressed young
woman was sitting behind a beech wood desk. The
receptionist was unable to hide her shock at Natasha’s
appearance and shakily told them to take a seat before buzzing
through to Daniels’ office.
"Cappy, come on through," a voice boomed out from the
depths of the long corridor. The receptionist pointed towards
an office at the far end and Capriotti again took hold of
Natasha’s arm and guided her down the thickly carpeted
corridor to a large office. Daniels looked up and then stared at
the bruised and cut face of the girl standing in his doorway.
"You’re the dancer from that club," he said, getting up and
pulling two chairs over to the small meeting table. "What the
hell happened?"
"It’s a long story but suffice to say your assessment of the
KGB was bang on the mark."
"Orlanov!" Daniels said, sitting down beside the young girl.

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"We’d better get that eye seen to, it looks like you’ve had ten
rounds with Sugar Ray."
Capriotti formally introduced Natasha and then went over
the last twelve hours, finishing with his receding view from the
back of the cab and the two goons with guns. "I did warn you,"
Daniels said, stretching over to the intercom and asking the
receptionist to get hold of the medical centre. "Reuters have a
deal with the local quack," he explained turning back to the
table. "We hand him copious amounts of crisp new greenbacks
and he gives us black-market drugs in return. He also does
house calls. It shouldn’t take him long to hotfoot it over here."
Natasha smiled but it was obvious she was still in some
considerable pain.
"Is it okay if I show Dan the picture?"
She nodded as he pulled the black and white photo from
his pocket and placed it face up on the table. Daniels swivelled
in his chair, picked his half moon-glasses off the desk and
looked at the picture.
"It’s an old picture of JFK, so what?
"See what’s behind him?" Daniels lifted the photo up and
looked closely at the background.
"It looks like the Kremlin spires," he finally said, dropping
it back onto the tabletop.
"I might be wrong, but I don't remember Kennedy ever
visiting Russia. Look at the date on the back."
Daniels turned it over. The writing was faded but he could
clearly make out 02/06/61. He sat back in the chair, closed his
eyes and let his mind wander back to another time, another
era. Natasha looked over at Capriotti, wondering if the older
man had fallen asleep.
Several more seconds slipped by before Daniels again
opened his eyes. "Paris. Kennedy was with De Gaulle in June.
I know, because Betty was all excited about her first trip to the
French capital. From Paris he went to Vienna and Khrushchev.
I definitely remember that because it was an absolute disaster,
old Nikita chewed him up and spat him out in little pieces."

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 "So the date’s wrong?"
"Either that or the photo’s a fake," Daniels replied, looking
again at the picture. "It’s definitely Kennedy. Who knows,
maybe he posed in front of some travel poster for the
cameras." He looked again. "Funny though, if he was in front
of a picture why only show the very top of the building?"
"It’s my father." Both men turned and stared at her in
stunned disbelief.
"You showed me a picture of your father the other night, he
looked nothing like Kennedy."
"That picture was taken almost four years before this one,"
she replied, fingering the photo on the table and then opening
her purse and placing the second picture beside the first.
Capriotti stared down at the two photos and then turned them
so Daniels could look.
"I suppose there is a resemblance," Daniels admitted,
picking up the second photo. "It’s difficult to tell."
Capriotti turned back to Natasha. "You said your mother
was lucid when she showed you the photo; was she able to tell
you anything about it?" Natasha averted her eyes, unsure
whether to trust the two Americans sitting across the table.
Capriotti leaned over and took her hand. "Only tell us if you
want to," he said gently. She looked at both men and then
back down at the old pictures staring up from the table.
"She told me the man in the photo was my father and that
they would have killed her had they known of its existence."
"Who are they?" Daniels asked.
"I’m not sure." She hesitated, remembering the night and
the pain her dying mother went through as she tried to tell her
daughter about the secret picture. Both men sat in silence,
giving her time to formulate the words. "She trained in a
military burns unit, I think that’s where she first met my
father."
"He was burned?" Daniels said, confusion spreading across
his lined face.
She smiled with the same sad, faraway look Capriotti had

111
seen at the Metropol. "A burns unit has two functions; the
first involves the initial injury and the need to ensure the
patient survives the trauma. Once they’ve stabilised the
patient, it’s the job of the plastic surgeon to rebuild the
damage."
"Are you saying he had plastic surgery?"
"It would seem the most likely explanation, if she’s right
and this is a picture of my father. I do know one thing, she
never saw him again after the photo in Moscow." Natasha
hesitated, remembering a much earlier conversation. "She
used to say it was a miracle I was ever conceived. In the five
years they were together, she saw him for a total of six weeks."
"But why on earth would the Russians want to turn your
father into Kennedy’s double?" Capriotti asked, again looking
down at the faded picture.
Before she could answer, there was a knock at the door and
the receptionist was telling Daniels that the doctor from the
medical centre was outside. He asked her to send him in and
then suggested to Capriotti they grab a coffee and leave
Natasha alone with the quack. The doctor was as big as
Daniels and almost as old. He carried a battered leather bag
that irrationally reminded Capriotti of the black and white
westerns he had watched as a boy.
"I find this too bizarre for words," Daniels said as they
stood at the end of the hallway waiting for the kettle to boil.
"Why would anyone produce a picture of Kennedy and
pretend it was their father?"
"You don't believe her?"
"Come on, Cappy, there’s no way that’s her father. I
travelled with Kennedy’s press team in the early sixties. Trust
me, that’s the real McCoy."
"What about the name and date?"
"So what? Some delusional old woman scrawls a name and
date on the back of a photo. What does that prove?"
"You said yourself Kennedy had never been to Moscow."
"They can do amazing things with computers these days."

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 "Maybe," Capriotti said, still not convinced. "It looked
genuine to me and Natasha seems to believe it."
"She could also be concussed," Daniels replied, pouring the
boiling water into two styrofoam cups. He added milk and
then handed one to his friend. "You don't seriously believe the
Russians created a doppelganger?"
Capriotti stifled a yawn. "I don't know, anymore." It had
been a long night and the lack of sleep was beginning to catch
up with him. "What am I going to do with her? If she goes
back to the apartment, Orlanov’s goons are going to find her."
"It’s not your concern. If you’re not careful he’ll come after
you as well."
"I’m not going to throw her back to the wolves."
"I knew it," Daniels snorted. "You’re smitten."
"Smitten!" Capriotti roared with laughter. "You’re showing
your age. Smitten went out with beehives and romantic
novels. Let's just say I’m captivated by her charms."
"More likely the size of her tits."
Before Capriotti could object, the doctor came out of the
office, shuffled across to Daniels and told him in faulting
English that he had given Natasha a course of antibiotics and
that she should rest. He did not think she had concussion but it
might be wise to have an x-ray. Daniels thanked him and pulled
a hundred-dollar bill from his wallet. Pocketing the money, the
doctor smiled and then retreated down the corridor to the
elevator. "Don't worry, I’ll put it on my expenses," Daniels said,
waving away the green bills Capriotti had withdrawn from his
own wallet. "And anyway, you might need it, particularly if you
insist on playing the knight in shining armour."
"Any ideas where we can hide her?"
"But of course." Daniels smiled, beginning to enjoy the
intrigue despite himself.
***
Orlanov hung up the phone; he was apoplectic. Not only had
the girl disappeared but, from the fleeting description

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Gouzenko had given earlier, she was with the American. He
had sent Karina home and told her not to wait up. Gouzenko
had been dispatched to the Intourist and had just phoned to
confirm that neither one of them had returned.
The main lights in the office were off, his room illuminated
by a single table light. His Leningrad contact had called earlier
and told him the modem link had been relayed through
Moscow Centre and that he would need more time to
backtrack to the access link. He was now waiting for the arrival
of the courier and the two computer disks, although he
personally doubted whether they would shed any light on the
girl’s behaviour. Then again, he had no other leads and a lot of
unanswered questions.
Orlanov sat brooding for another thirty minutes and then
gave up, slamming the office door and storming out into the
cold and his waiting car. Five minutes later, and just as
Illanovitch was getting ready to leave his hiding place, the
courier arrived in an overheating Skoda. Orlanov’s car was
already negotiating the carriageway on ramp when Detective,
First Class, Sergei Illanovitch stepped out of the shadows and
approached the ill-tempered driver.
***
Reuters kept a staff house in the Krasnaya Presnya district just
beyond Ploshchad Vosstaniya. They had chosen the area
because it was within walking distance of the US Embassy
annexe and the Russian White House. After the war it had
been a mainly working class district, but over the intervening
years had slowly become one of Moscow’s better
neighbourhoods. It was during the Brezhnev era that
bureaucrats had finally awoken to the potential of a waterfront
site only fifteen minutes’ drive from the Kremlin.
As Natasha dozed, Daniels recounted from the front of the
cab why he preferred the city centre hotels and the chance to
mix and socialise with other journalists, Capriotti retorting
that what he really meant was he could steal their stories.

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 It was dark when the cab pulled up outside an impressive
detached building, Daniels having already given a potted
history of the house and the fact that it was one of the first in
Moscow to have been fitted with flushing toilets. The house
was cold and he explained that the usual resident was back in
the States, attending a sick relative. They found the central
heating boiler and, after some difficulty, managed to fire it up.
There were five bedrooms, a drawing room, lounge and wood-
panelled dining room where a magnificent crystal chandelier
was suspended over an eight-place mahogany dining table.
After giving them the full tour, he showed them how to use
the recently installed burglar alarm and then handed over a set
of keys. Before leaving, he suggested Capriotti give him his
hotel room key so he could bring over his clothes and laptop
in the morning, finally ending his lecture by reminding them
to keep an eye open for strange looking men with bulging
jackets. Capriotti walked him out to the waiting cab, thanked
him for his help and told him to be careful.
"We’d better check the food situation," Capriotti called
out as he closed and locked the front door. The radiators were
beginning to warm but he felt sure they would be no better
than their counterparts at the hotel. Natasha was in the
kitchen and opening the cupboards beside the sink, the kettle
already spluttering to life on the small gas stove. The fridge
was empty but the walk-in larder had row upon row of
canned food. "Someone was planning for rationing."
Capriotti smiled as he removed a couple of tins of stewed
meat and potatoes.
"I’m sure if my mother’s generation could see how the
communists truly lived, they’d be more comfortable with
perestroika."
"It’s the same the world over," Capriotti replied, trying to
work the can opener. He finally gave up, handing both the tins
and the opener to Natasha. Five seconds later she had them
open and the contents in a saucepan.
"So are men." She found a wooden spoon in one of the

115
drawers and began stirring the brown stew. "I like Dan, it was
kind of him to let us stay here."
"He’s an old romantic at heart, been married to the same
woman for forty odd years. There aren’t many who can say
that."
"Are you married?" she asked, opening more cupboards and
trying to find the plates.
He hesitated, long enough for Natasha to notice and turn
back from the cooker. "A long time ago," was all he finally
said.
Once the stew was ready she ladled it onto two plates and
gave him a fork. They ate in silence, both lost in their own
thoughts. Capriotti washed and dried the plates and then they
took their coffee through to the lounge. The room was still
cool and, suggesting that they should light a fire, he found
some old papers, screwed them up, placed them in the grate
and added coal from a brass hod. It took half an hour to coax
the fire into life but soon the room began to warm up,
Capriotti closing the heavy curtains, removing his coat and
crossing back over to the couch.
"Dan’s not too sure about the photo."
"Imagine how I felt when I opened the envelope? I’d always
had this image of my father and suddenly it’s turned upside
down. It wasn’t until after I began asking questions that I
started to believe there might be more to what she had said."
"Questions?" Capriotti asked, removing his damp shoes.
"All I had was the photo and a warning from my mother
not to let anyone see it. She was a very pragmatic woman and
not given to histrionics or hyperbole, so I knew she was
serious. Nevertheless, I began to make some discreet
enquiries…"
"And?" he asked, leaning forward and throwing another
lump of coal onto the glowing fire.
"It was difficult, because he’d lived in Berlin but even so…"
"Red tape?"
She shook her head. "It was more like doors being closed in

116
my face. I wrote to the East German authorities but when they
did finally answer, it was to tell me that Alexander Kerchenko
had never existed. I know a lot of records were lost in the war
but the Germans are usually meticulous about keeping that
kind of thing."
"You’re sure he came from Berlin?"
"I found my mother’s passport, which came as a surprise
because I never knew she had one. According to the visa
stamps she only once left the country and that was in January
sixty-four. She flew to East Berlin, spent four days there and
then returned. I can only surmise she went there for the
funeral. Thing is, if he did die in Berlin, then surely there
would be a record of his death?"
"You would think so," Capriotti replied.
"By this time I had graduated and was looking for a
position as a Foreign Ministry translator. I speak fluent
English, German and French," she said, matter-of-factly. "My
tutors had put me forward for several top level positions in
Paris, Bonn and London. After six months of rejections, it
began to dawn on me that no one was going to give me a job,
which is why I ended up with the Dostoyevsky Shipping
Company. They were looking for someone who could
translate the shipping manifests and, whilst not what I
wanted, there was little else on the immediate horizon."
"And that’s where you met Orlanov?"
"There was a small problem with a pro forma invoice and I
managed to sort it out. He was grateful, I was single and so
when he asked me out for dinner as a thank you, I said yes.
The second time we went out he got pretty drunk and began
bragging about his KGB connections and how he could get
information on anyone."
"Anyone?"
"He was very charming," she continued, ignoring the
question, "and suggested my talents were wasted in
Leningrad." She hesitated, her eyes averted. "I suppose I was
flattered and, yes, I hoped if I played along I could persuade

117
him to check the files. Last month I came to Moscow, and the
rest you know."
"So what now?"
"I suppose I’ll go back to Leningrad and Dostoyevskys."
"What about Orlanov?"
Her face clouded as she remembered the vicious look in his
eyes and the brutal way he had beaten and kicked her. Her
hands went to the long cut on her cheek and the bruise around
her eye. Capriotti stretched along the couch and clasped her
hand as large tears began to fall across wet cheeks.

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Wednesday, November 28th

I llanovitch released the courier back onto the streets at one

thirty in the morning. The man’s story had checked out and
there was no reason to keep him in custody, or so Illanovitch
had told him after the mandatory strip search had revealed the
computer disks. Illanovitch had been startled when the duty
sergeant had shown him the man’s personal belongings:
startled because someone had scrawled 'Kerchenko' on one of
the labels. He had copied the disks and then returned the
originals to the plastic bag in the custody room.
Like Orlanov, Illanovitch did not believe in coincidence.
The two disks were being delivered to Orlanov’s offices. They
held the Kerchenko file; the same file Illanovitch had failed to
access on the Stasi mainframe. Quite obviously, there was
someone on Orlanov’s payroll with no such problems.
Illanovitch felt sure that whoever had downloaded the file
had done so because Orlanov’s access password had sent up a
flag. That being the case, Orlanov must have a man inside
Moscow Centre and at the heart of the KGB. He would let the
courier deliver the disks.
***
Although tired, Capriotti was still awake. The double bed was
cold but not because there was a dearth of blankets. As with
the previous night, he had wanted to again hold Natasha close
but could find neither the courage nor the strength of
conviction to ask her. He thought of her lying in the next
room and wondered if she was asleep, finally telling himself
that the image was self-defeating.
Instead, he consciously allowed his mind to go back over
the day’s events and the discovery of Kennedy’s picture.
Daniels was wrong about one thing: if Natasha’s mother had
kept the picture locked away for thirty years, then it could not

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be a computer-generated image. That being the case there
were only two explanations. Either it was a photo of Jack
Kennedy or it really was Alexander Kerchenko. The date on
the back of the photo was June second nineteen sixty-one.
He thought back to where he had been in sixty-one: New
York and running numbers for his cousin. Vinny Capriotti
had been three years older and a figure of awe and respect in
Little Italy. He was smart and tough; the only two virtues
needed to survive on the streets. In sixty-five, the war had
erupted in earnest and Vinny was called up. Six months after
shipping out he had been blown to pieces outside a bar in
Saigon, the family later finding out that a young girl had
pedalled past on a bike and calmly detonated a box of grenades
balanced on the handlebars. There was no warning, no rhyme
or reason, Vinny Capriotti perishing alongside seven other
marines and the ten-year old girl. Their devastated grandfather
had collapsed and died two months after watching Vinny’s
remains being interred under the snow-covered ground.
Capriotti tried to think back to sixty-one and the politics of
the era. How old would he have been – twenty, twenty-one?
He remembered the Berlin Wall, Khrushchev, Paris - but not
Moscow. He needed more. The photo on its own meant
nothing. Maybe Dan was right, it was just a clever fake; find a
photo of Kennedy, superimpose it against a picture of the
Kremlin and snap.
He heard the bedroom door slowly open and then saw the
same beautiful vision he remembered from the Club, long
tapered legs, full figure and soft flowing hair. She was
silhouetted in the moonlight filtering through the half-closed
curtains, Capriotti holding his breath as she glided across the
floor and slipped beneath the covers.
"Hold me, John," she whispered softly, her hand stretching
out and touching his.
***
Daniels was sitting alone in the dining room; a paper propped

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up in front of him. He was drinking his first coffee of the
morning and wondering whether he might have been wrong.
The meeting between Gorbachev and Aziz had been cordial
and the Russian leader was making bearish noises about
putting pressure on the Security Council and the American-
backed coalition. Edvard Schevardnadze was threatening to
resign, his pro-democracy supporters hinting that the USSR
was moving back towards dictatorship. Reuters wanted their
respected journalist back in Geneva but Daniels had told them
he was staying put. He looked up as the waiter refilled his cup.
"Has your friend moved out?" Sergei asked, in recognition
that Daniels was sitting alone for the second consecutive
morning.
The journalist looked up from his paper and scowled at the
waiter. "He probably couldn’t stand any more of this black tar
you call coffee."
Illanovitch smiled and retired to the kitchen, pulled off his
apron, removed his coat from the peg behind the pot washer’s
door and slipped out to his car. Thirty minutes later he was
watching as Daniels struggled out the front door and into a
cab, the driver making no offer to help with the heavy suitcase
he was dragging behind him. The old Skoda was three cars
behind as the cab slithered across Red Square and turned West
towards Krasnaya Presnya and the Reuters' staff house.
***
"Are you sure?" Orlanov barked over the phone.
"The two Americans booked in together. The girl on the
desk said the tall one has not been back since the day before
yesterday. The older one just got into a cab."
"All right, follow him and see if he leads you to his friend.
If you find the girl, I want her brought here."
"What about the American?" Gouzenko asked, this time
taking care to make sure his instructions were clear and succinct.
"I don’t care what you do, just make sure he can never
bother me again."

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 Gouzenko smiled as Orlanov slammed down the phone.
This time the instructions were explicit.
***
Daniels paid off the cab and struggled up the path to the front
of the house. He never noticed the dark brown Skoda that
pulled into an empty space further up the street. The Skoda’s
driver did not notice the black Volga that pulled up several
minutes later and parked at the top of the street; nor did he
notice the two NKVD men sitting in the front seat.
Capriotti peered through the peephole, unlocked the dead
bolts and pulled open the door. "Sleep okay?" Daniels said,
dropping the heavy case and walking past his friend into the
lounge. He missed the slight smile behind his back.
"Fine, you had breakfast yet?"
"Only if you call that greasy cold gristle the hotel serves
food," Daniels snorted with the feeling only a true gourmet
could muster. "Where’s the girl?"
"Having a bath."
"I did some checking last night with our Paris bureau,"
Daniels continued, crossing to the couch. "They went through
their old microfiche files and confirmed that Kennedy was at
a state dinner at Versailles on June second. Half of the then
Paris elite was also in attendance, so I think we can discount
the picture outside the Kremlin. Either that or he figured out
how to be in two places at once. Come to think of it, it’s a pity
he couldn’t have pulled off the same trick in Dallas!"
"Which means it couldn’t be JFK in the photo."
"Either that or the date’s wrong."
Natasha walked into the lounge. Her face looked better, the
puffiness around her eye beginning to subside. She smiled at
Daniels and asked him whether he would like a coffee. He
nodded as she turned and looked towards Capriotti.
"Did I just miss something there?" he asked, once Natasha
had left the room. "She didn’t seem to give me the same look
she gave you?"

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 Capriotti self-consciously picked up the poker and stirred
the ashes around in the hearth. They were still warm. He bent
down and placed several lumps of coal in the fire. "Your
imagination’s in overdrive."
"Another thing," Daniels said, dismissing his own instincts.
"It sounds like Shevardnadze’s threatening to resign. It’s my
guess he’s trying to distance himself from Gorbachev’s line
with the Iraqis. The Geneva meeting’s been delayed until after
the Security Council meets next week. Bush is pushing them
hard to sanction Resolution 678. If they agree, then the war’s
on."
"Did you find out if Kennedy ever came to Moscow?"
Capriotti's interest in current affairs was at an all time low,
a point that had not escaped his friend’s attention. "I don’t
know about your Texan hicks but our readers like to be kept
abreast of more recent events." Capriotti gave him a withering
stare by return. "No, he never came to Moscow," Daniels
continued, recognising the look from the past and before his
friend’s decline into the bottle. "After Paris, he went directly to
Vienna and the mauling with Khrushchev. From there, he flew
to London and a meeting with Prime Minister Macmillan. As
far as I’m aware, he was never back in Europe until the ‘Ich bin
ein Berliner’ speech at the Brandenburg Gate in sixty-three."
Natasha returned with a tray, three coffee mugs and a bowl
of sugar. Daniels got up and offered her his seat, heaped three
spoonfuls into his mug and stirred it in with vigour. As he
crossed the room he glanced through the half closed curtains
just as Sergei was surreptitiously looking out from behind a
tree to the left of the big bay window.
"I don't want to alarm you," he said, placing his cup on the
table and motioning towards the front garden. "But our hotel
waiter’s skulking behind a tree out there."
Capriotti moved across to the curtains and peered out. He
saw nothing. "Are you sure?"
"What, that I paid the bill this morning? Of course I’m
bloody sure. It’s him."

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 "What’s he doing here?" Natasha said, her eyes narrowing
and suddenly fearful..
"God knows. Dan and I thought he might be KGB. He
certainly doesn’t look like your everyday waiter."
"There’s no point in trying to outrun them," Daniels said,
already moving towards the door. "If he is following us, let’s
grab the bull by the horns."
Capriotti nodded in agreement, remembering Sergei’s
sympathetic comments in the Muscovitch. They heard the
front door open and then Daniels’ voice incongruously asking
Sergei to join them in the lounge. Several seconds later Sergei
Illanovitch walked into the large living room.
"I presume you know everyone?"
The policeman nodded sheepishly, an embarrassed smile
spreading across his face. "What happened to Miss Kerchenko?"
he asked, noticing the dark purple bruise under her eye.
"She walked into Orlanov’s fist," Capriotti growled and
then added. "Why are you following us?"
"Organised Crime Division," Illanovitch replied, pulling
an identity card from an inside pocket. He did not think the
time was right to tell them who had called Orlanov’s secretary
and told her about their cosy soiree at the Metropol.
"Would we be right in thinking your interest lies with
Orlanov, rather than Natasha?"
"Let’s just say that Mister Orlanov’s business interests are
giving us cause for concern."
He again looked across at Natasha and then tactfully
suggested they might like to accompany him to the OMON
office.
"Is that a request?" Daniels asked from the doorway.
"Not really," the policeman answered with unabashed
openness.
The two Americans looked at each other and then back
towards the worried looking girl. Their position as bona fide
journalists would protect them. Capriotti was not so sure
about Natasha. "Are we under arrest?" he asked.

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 "Not as long as you haven’t broken any laws," the
policeman replied crossing back to the vestibule and opening
the front door. Capriotti took Natasha’s hand and was about
to reassure her that they would be okay when a single shot
rang out and in an instant all his assurances evaporated.
Illanovitch fell backwards into Daniels’ arms, blood already
soaking his shirt and jacket. There was a shout from outside
and then another shot slammed into the wooden doorframe.
Capriotti reacted first, helping to pull the unconscious Sergei
back into the hall as Daniels wrenched the door closed and
then slammed shut the dead bolts. Keeping low, they dragged
the downed police officer along the hall and into the kitchen.
His face was already deathly white, his breathing laboured and
shallow.
"Get him up on the table." Natasha said.
"Jesus!" Daniels swore as he saw the exit wound.
Illanovitch’s jacket was ripped apart at the back and all he
could see was a wet gaping mess of blood, tissue and bone. "It’s
bad, John, real bad."
"See if you can stop the bleeding," Capriotti said to no one
in particular, the reality of what had just happened beginning
to sink in. Natasha opened a drawer, pulled out some clean
dishtowels and handed them to Daniels who gently pressed
them against the wound.
He watched helplessly as bright-red aerated blood began to
bubble and seep out of the dying man’s mouth. "I don’t think
he’s going to make it." Sergei’s eyes flickered open for an
instant and then closed for the last time, the two Americans
and the girl from Leningrad looking away as life ebbed
effortlessly out of the young Muscovite.
"Oh, sweet Jesus," Daniels whispered.
"Get down," Capriotti suddenly hissed as a shadowy figure
passed across the bottom half of the frosted kitchen window.
"He’s right outside."
No one spoke as the menacing shadow moved along the
side of the house. Natasha had started to shake and Capriotti

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stretched out a hand and pulled her across the floor towards
him. "Stay down," he repeated as he crawled back over to the
body on the table and eased apart the flaps of the dead man's
jacket. Strapped to the blood-soaked shirt was a shoulder
holster. He unclipped the leather safety snap, removed the
gun, checked that the clip was full and then flipped the safety
catch, his hands trembling as he crawled back to the girl
pressed up against the far wall. Daniels was now crouched
beneath the sink unit. They remained still, trying to discern a
noise, any noise that would tell them where the gunman was.
Several seconds passed and then they heard someone trying
the back door handle. Capriotti raised the gun. As he watched,
the shadow again moved past the frosted window.
Instinctively, he aimed and fired, shattering the pane and
showering the cowering Daniels with fragments of glass. The
gun’s report was deafening, blue cordite snaking towards the
corpse on the table. They heard a man screaming in pain and
anger, a voice calling out and then the thumping sound of
retreating feet on the snow-covered paving outside. Capriotti
ran through the hall and into the lounge, peering out between
the heavy curtains as two men, one supporting the other,
lurched out through the gate and turned left up the street.
"We need to get out of here," he called out from doorway.
"Did you hit him?" Daniels was back up on his feet and
carefully brushing broken glass out of his thinning hair.
"I’m not sure, there were two of them." He looked over at
the body lying still on the table. "What about Sergei?"
"He won't be serving coffee again, if that's what you
mean," Daniels said bitterly. "Someone’s bound to have heard
those shots and called them in. Jesus, what a mess."
"We’ll need transport, check his pockets for car keys."
Daniels screwed up his face as he gingerly searched the
sticky wet jacket. He found the man’s wallet. Inside were a few
rubles and a picture of a pretty woman and an even prettier
little girl. He showed the picture to Capriotti before checking
the inside pocket and pulling out two floppy disks. "Look at

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this," Daniels said, Capriotti catching his breath when he saw
the name scrawled on the top disk. The keys were in
Illanovitch's trouser pocket, along with his identity card and
Daniels wiped them both on a dishtowel to remove the
congealing blood.
Capriotti guided Natasha toward the door. "Come on, we
need to get out of here now." Her face was pasty white, her
eyes blank and uncomprehending as he pulled her along the
hall. Daniels turned at the kitchen door and took one last look
at the dead body lying on the table.
Picking up the case, Capriotti eased back the dead locks,
inched open the front door and peered outside. It seemed
quiet. He pulled the gun from his waistband and told Daniels
to bring the case. Moving down the path, he looked left and
then right; the street was empty, apart from two cars. He
waved the other two forward and, still in a half crouch,
moved towards the first car. He tried the door. It was open.
He leaned over and turned the key in the ignition. The red
light came on. He shouted to Daniels to hurry up, missing
the other man’s terse reply as he got into the driver’s seat.
Natasha clambered into the passenger side as Daniels
struggled to get the case into the back of the car. Capriotti
tried the key again but nothing happened. He fiddled with it
and suddenly the ignition light came on. The car started on
the third try. He crunched the gear stick into first and let out
the clutch. It stalled. "No hurry." Daniels laughed nervously,
looking back towards the Reuters’ company house. It started
again but this time Capriotti gunned the engine before
releasing the clutch, the car lurching forward and then he was
in second and moving towards the end of the street. He
turned left and followed the road north onto Novinsky
Bulvar. As they hit the carriageway, he saw two police cars
with flashing lights going the other way.
"Suggestions?"
"We need to get away from Moscow," Daniels breathed
heavily, watching the disappearing police cars through the

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back window. "No one’s going to believe us, even if we do get
a chance to tell them what happened."
"If you can find the M10 we can take the freeway to
Leningrad. Keep on Novinsky until we reach the inner ring
road, it will take us around the city centre."
Capriotti looked at Daniels in the mirror. "What do you
think?"
"What other choices do we have?" the older man replied,
re-checking the back window. "Just make sure you don’t break
any speed limits!"
They drove in silence as Capriotti kept the car at a steady
fifty around the inner ring road and then onto the M10
freeway. Once out of Moscow the traffic seemed to ease off and
with it some of the tension. The car was still cold, even with the
heater’s fan on full blast, and an hour out of Moscow the fuel
gauge suddenly dropped from half full to empty. Capriotti
watched it for several minutes but it failed to creep back up.
"We need gas," he finally said, breaking the brooding silence.
Natasha checked the map she had found in the glove
compartment. "We should see a station in the next twenty
kilometres." Fifteen minutes later they pulled off the freeway
and whilst Capriotti filled the tank she went into the small
cubicle and paid with rubles. The last thing they wanted was
to advertise the fact that there were two Americans in the car.
They drove on through the day and into the dusk,
Capriotti beginning to feel the strain when they finally found
themselves on the outskirts of industrial Leningrad. He eased
onto the hard shoulder and changed seats with Natasha,
letting her drive the final few kilometres through the old city
and towards the district where she had been born and brought
up. Half an hour later, they pulled up outside a weather beaten
house in a run-down area on the east side of the city. The
house was small, cold and sparsely furnished. Natasha looked
embarrassed as she showed the two Americans into the
cramped living area, explaining that if her mother had been
alive a fire would have been roaring in the hearth. Capriotti,

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feeling her discomfort, offered to bring in the coal from an
outside bunker and build one for her. Natasha busied herself
in the kitchen and, by the time the room began to warm up,
the kettle was steaming on the one-ring gas stove.
Daniels was sitting on an old leather chair beside the
fireplace and within minutes was snoring softly. Capriotti sat
on the couch and gratefully accepted the chipped coffee mug
as Natasha sat down beside him and snuggled close.
"I’ve never seen a person killed," she said, shivering at the
memory.
"Let’s hope you never have to see another one." They sat in
silence for a while, watching the flames as they licked the back
of the soot-covered bricks, Capriotti eventually stretching
forward and throwing another lump of wet coal onto the fire.
It hissed and the bright flames died, plunging the small room
into darkness. Placing his mug on the carpet, he leaned over
and kissed her.
"Stop that, you two," a weary voice chuckled from across
the room. "It’s enough to give an old man palpitations."
Natasha pulled away, her face scarlet with embarrassment. She
got up and turned on a small light. "That’s better, at least I can
keep an eye on you both."
"Now that you’ve thoroughly embarrassed us, you might
want to give some consideration to our predicament."
"It’s not good. There is a dead cop lying in Reuters’ Moscow
staff house, you have his gun in your coat pocket, we have no
idea who killed him and no way of proving it wasn’t us. Not
only that, we stole his car, failed to report the crime and fled
the scene. If you ask me, it’s an open and shut case. If they
catch us, we’re going to be bunking down with Sakharov in
one of the gulags."
"That good, eh?"
"It gets worse. Sergei all but said he’d been watching
Natasha, my bet is there’ll be a file back at his office and it
won’t take them too long to put two and two together. I
reckon we’ve got twenty-four hours, forty-eight at best."

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 "What about Orlanov, surely we can prove he’s involved in
this?"
"We don't know that he is. Undoubtedly he sent the thugs
over but, and unless they suddenly find a conscience and own
up, he’ll deny everything. Our only hope is to get out of the
country and even then there are no guarantees. I’m telling you,
this is a no-win situation."
***
Orlanov at that very moment was considering his own
options. Gouzenko’s partner was lying on his office couch with
a shattered shoulder. He had been lucky, another inch to the
right and he would have lost his head; not that Orlanov was
worried either way. A tame doctor had stemmed the bleeding
and stitched the tissue. The exit wound was clean and apart
from some peripheral nerve damage, the doctor felt sure that
the man would recover ninety percent movement.
Orlanov had more pressing concerns than the comfort of his
employee. The Federal Counter Intelligence Service, the newly
sanitised name for the KGB, had been pulled in and was actively
searching for the killers. An all-points bulletin had been put out
and roadblocks had been set up around Moscow. OMON, the
Special Purpose Militia Detachments of the Ministry of the
Interior, were taking the death of one of their own very
personally. Orlanov had already had one visit from Illanovitch’s
superior and had little doubt it was just the first of many.
Even more worrying, the courier had belatedly told him a
police officer had been waiting at the warehouse the previous
night and that he had been pulled in for questioning. Orlanov
knew the OMON would have found and copied the disks,
which explained why the man had been released and allowed
to make the delivery. That being the case, it was probable that
they were already running a trace and might even be able to
link the disks back to his KGB contact in Leningrad. Without
that contact and the information he provided, he would lose
all hold over the businessmen and politicians in his pocket.

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 All in all, Orlanov’s position was not looking quite as
healthy as Daniels had first assumed and the club owner was
beginning to wonder if it might not be time to cut his losses
and temporarily move into less dangerous waters. He looked
across the room, his eyes coming to rest on the semi-conscious
man lying on the leather couch. First things first though. He
opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a silenced
Walther PPK. Getting up, he walked across the carpet, coldly
placed the gun under the man’s chin, shielded his eyes and
squeezed the trigger, the dead man’s head jumping off the
couch as the Walther recoiled. This was not the first time that
Orlanov had cleanly executed an inadequate employee,
everything depending on the angled trajectory of the bullet as
it passed through the mouth, the base of the brain and into the
skull, ripping the medulla apart and killing the victim
instantly. The advantage of Orlanov's technique was the bullet
normally spun around the unfortunate victim's skull and no
exit wound meant no mess.
Returning to the desk, he pressed the intercom and told
Karina to find his driver. Ten minutes later there was a discreet
knock on the door and he called him in, pointed to the dead
NKVD agent and told him to dispose of the body. The man
nodded, used to such mundane requests. As Orlanov replaced
the gun in the top drawer, he noticed the two computer disks.
Pulling them out, he switched on the desktop computer -
Orlanov, unlike his KGB counterpart in Leningrad, spoke
fluent German.
***
The CIA’s Deputy Director, John Fulbright, ordered a Scotch
and water and waited. Like Reisberg, he had been with the
Firm since the fifties, unlike Reisberg he had no plans to retire,
at least not yet.
Fulbright had worked directly under "man-eating shark"
Bissell during the run up to the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Both Bissell
and the then CIA Director, Allen Dulles, had been forced to

131
resign after the Cubans shot down six American B-26s during
the ill-fated invasion on the morning of April nineteenth,
nineteen sixty. It had marked a black day in the annals of
American foreign policy, the CIA and, more particularly, the
career aspirations of the then thirty-five-year old John
Fulbright. It had also seen Kennedy’s poll ratings plummet.
Fulbright would never forget the day he sat with Nixon,
Bissell and Dulles in the Oval Office and listened as Kennedy
had ranted and berated them for the failure of the mission. The
President had jumped up from his chair and begun pacing back
and forth in front of his desk. His anger and frustration poured
out in a profane barrage and, years later, the disgraced Richard
Nixon had recounted Kennedy’s exact words in his memoirs. A
copy of the quote now hung on Fulbright’s office wall in
Langley. He knew it off by heart. "…I was assured by every son
of a bitch I checked with - all the military experts and the CIA
- that the Goddamn plan would succeed….’ Fulbright shivered
as he replayed the quote in his mind. It was a defining moment
in American history and he had been there.
He had been luckier than Bissell and Dulles, escaping with
nothing more than a sideways transfer to Dallas.
It was during the lead up to the Bay of Pigs that Bissell and
Fulbright had recruited some of the Miami Mafia bosses who
had once controlled the casinos and vice rings in the days of
the Batista dictatorship. One such boss was Sam Giancana, the
same Sam Giancana that Fulbright later called on for help
after the CIA’s new Director, John McCone, had summoned
him to Washington in the late summer of sixty-three and
outlined the Kerchenko problem.
The other man he had recruited was Frank Harvey. It was
Harvey he was now waiting for in the small bar, ironically
situated four blocks down from Washington’s Halls of Justice.
He had no desire to meet or speak with the man but the
changing circumstances left him few options. The situation
was escalating out of control and now was not the time for the
President to be faced with the Kennedy spectre.

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 Fulbright ordered a second drink and wondered whether
they should have terminated Harvey and kept Brown, rather
than the other way around. They had needed someone to tie
up the lose ends and it had been a toss up as to whether they
would use Brown or Harvey. In the end, he had chosen
Harvey but only because he had better underworld contacts in
Texas and Louisiana. Fulbright remembered thinking at the
time that he might be hard to control but, with the decision
made, Brown had lost out, the Cambodian cover story his own
idea.
The drink arrived, along with a folded note. Fulbright
thanked the waitress and opened the single sheet of paper.
Finishing his drink, he dropped some bills on the table,
crossed the street to the covered car park, climbed to the fifth
level and walked measuredly over to the south side.
"Too much Scotch will dull your senses," Harvey said from
the shadows of a concrete support pillar.
"Hey Frank, nice of you to turn up. I like the Deep
Throatish touch."
"Let’s cut to the chase," Harvey snapped back. "It’s too
damn cold to be standing around with people you despise."
Fulbright smiled, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his trench
coat pocket and lit one, tossing the spent match into a puddle
beside the pillar. Neither time nor years had changed Frank
Harvey.
"The Kerchenko file has surfaced. Two nights ago someone
accessed the Stasi’s mainframe in Berlin."
"I thought the Russians had destroyed Kerchenko’s
records?"
"So did we. Apparently, the Stasi kept their own files,
probably as a safeguard against their Russian masters. Since
last year and the Wall, it’s been total confusion over there. It’s
not hard to imagine how someone could hack into their
computers."
"Do we know who accessed the file?"
Fulbright smiled to himself, Harvey had used the ‘we’

133
word. "An ex-KGB Major called Dmitri Orlanov. I want you
to go to Moscow and make sure the files are destroyed and that
the good Major is taken care of."
Harvey's lip curled. It was happening again and there was
nothing he could do about it. "I don't suppose you’ve anyone
else who could do the job?"
"No one we can rely on. One more thing, don't bother to
make this one look like an accident. Orlanov’s now Red Mafia
and they don't normally die of old age."
***
Natasha had shown a tired and physically drained Daniels up
to the smaller of the two bedrooms and the same one she had
used whilst her mother was alive. She was now busy in the
kitchen trying to pull together a meagre meal out of next to
nothing - a can of tuna fish, a small bottle of home made-wine
and some home-grown potatoes that had seen better days. She
left the pot boiling on the ring and joined Capriotti on the
couch. He had retrieved his laptop from the suitcase and was
downloading the disks onto the hard drive. "Damn, it’s two
and a half megabytes," he murmured, going into the file
directory.
"Is that a problem?"
"Not really, I’m just surprised your father warrants such a
big file."
He pulled up the first header page. "Shit," he swore under
his breath. "It’s in German." He scrolled down the page until
he came to the same date of death that Illanovitch had noted
several nights earlier. Capriotti recognised it immediately, just
as any American of his era would – November the twenty-
second, nineteen sixty-three. He sat back in the couch, his
emotions jangling, a cold chill suddenly running down his
spine. "Your father died on the same day Kennedy did."
"So it would seem," she said, reading the header page over
his shoulder.
"Can you translate this?" The water began to boil over on

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the stove and she quickly retreated to the small kitchen,
drained the potatoes and then brought through their food.
"I can, but it’s going to take time to transcribe everything.
It might be easier if we buy a small tape recorder so I can read
directly from the screen to the machine." Capriotti didn’t
answer, instead opening his suitcase and digging around until
he found a small hand-held recorder and some cassettes.
"A good journalist never leaves home without one."
They finished the food and Natasha topped up their glasses
before clearing away the plates and returning to the couch and
the task in hand. Capriotti had already scrolled down to the
second page and, after depressing the record button, handed
her the small tape machine.
"Damn," he said, as the low battery light on the side of the
screen began to flash. "Sorry, but I’m going to have to recharge
this thing before we do anything else." He got up, rummaged
around in his case and then sat back down on the couch. "The
adapter’s probably still plugged into the socket in the hotel
room. We’ll have to try and find another one tomorrow."
Natasha smiled, stretched and slowly rose from the couch.
"Why don't we go to bed then?"
He looked up at her face. "Together?"
She took his hand and pulled him off the couch and into
her arms. Her fingers linked behind his head, gently pulling
him forward so that her lips brushed his ear. "I want you to do
more than just hold me tonight," she whispered, moving her
lips to his mouth. Capriotti kissed her hard, knowing that
Kerchenko and the Stasi files would most certainly have to
wait until tomorrow.
***
With no such distractions to tempt him away from the screen,
Orlanov had been scrolling through the Kerchenko file for the
best part of five hours. Like Capriotti, a cold chill had settled
over him and the more he read, the more difficult he found it
to believe what was in the file.

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 The opening entry was nineteen fifty-eight and two years
after Khrushchev’s emergence as Politburo leader. Orlanov had
been a young KGB recruit in nineteen sixty and vaguely
remembered the man's eight years of unassailable power. One
thing he and many others of his generation did recall was the
contemptible day when Khrushchev had interrupted a speech
at the United Nations by banging on the table with his shoe.
The whole country had been appalled and, several months
later, Leonid Brezhnev had taken over. That had been October
nineteen sixty-four and the beginning of Orlanov’s rise in the
agency. Brezhnev had returned the Soviet Union to the fear-
filled days of Stalinism, dismissing Khrushchev’s attempts at
the ‘cultural thaw’. Over the ensuing years, Khrushchev had
been portrayed as a fool, a joker - but the files now scrolling
across Orlanov’s screen painted a very different picture of the
man.
For Khrushchev, it had begun after the war and the Berlin
Airlift. At that time, he had been a lowly member of a
Politburo presiding over a country in the grip of Stalin and
Beria’s post-war years of repression and political show trials. It
was a Politburo still humiliated by the Airlift of forty-eight and
forty-nine when, under the supervision of General Lucius D.
Clay, the allies had flown millions of tons of supplies into West
Berlin’s Templehoff airport. The operation to feed West Berlin
had gone on for eight months, Stalin finally relenting and
agreeing to keep a road corridor open to the West and allowing
President Truman to trumpet democracy’s first post-war
victory. It was apparent from the files dancing in front of
Orlanov’s eyes that Khrushchev had never forgotten his
country’s humiliating climb-down and who had caused it
In October nineteen fifty-eight, and now leader of the
world’s second most powerful nation, Khrushchev had
gathered a select group of trusted KGB and Politburo
members and hatched Operation Poslezavtra - ‘The Day After
Tomorrow.’ To say the plan was audacious was to understate
the obvious.

136
 Khrushchev not only knew that Eisenhower would step
down from the Presidency in January nineteen sixty but that
the most likely candidate to replace him was Richard Millhouse
Nixon, Eisenhower’s Vice-President. The outcome of the
elections would be known to the world in the early morning of
November the ninth only hours after the American voters had
decided between the Republican Nixon and the relatively
unknown Democrat, Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Operation Poslezavtra was relatively simple, at least in
essence: replace the new American President with a Russian
doppelganger.
Orlanov read on through the night. The files contained
secret memos, hospital reports, orders for the execution of the
surgeons who had performed the cosmetic surgery, the
teachers and professors, the elocution instructors, in fact
anyone and everyone who had anything to do with the
transformation of Alexander Kerchenko into John Kennedy.
Initially, there had been two doppelgangers, Kerchenko and
another man called Georgy Kuptsy. On the afternoon of
November ninth, Kuptsy had been removed from the secret
establishment in Gorky and executed. No one involved in the
Operation had counted on Joe Kennedy’s millions and the
effect he would have on the outcome of the election. No one,
including the defeated Nixon and the unfortunate Kuptsy.
As dawn broke, Orlanov was finding it hard to keep his eyes
open, the chill he had felt ten hour’s earlier still hanging over
the room like a great claustrophobic claw. He had read half the
file and, as he removed the disks and wiped the information
from the screen, his thoughts turned to Colonel Al-Sawabi
and the millions he would pay to have the information they
contained.
***
Natasha rolled over and pulled her hand across his chest. He
was lying on his back, his eyes open and staring up at the
ceiling. "You're quiet."

137
 Capriotti stirred, her words bringing him back to the small
room and the beautiful girl lying naked and warm beside him.
He leaned over and pulled her close, the smell of her body
intoxicating and immediately beginning to arouse him again.
"I hate the dark, always have."
"I’m the opposite," she murmured, snuggling closer and
letting her hand slip lower. "We didn’t have electricity when I
was small and couldn't always afford oil for the lamps. I used
to dream that my father would come to me in the dark, hold
me close and tell me that everything would be okay."
Her words hit him like a sledgehammer. Hot tears suddenly
stung his eyes and then he was sobbing, the sound growing as
he remembered the small, auburn haired girl and the joy she
had brought them. "I'm sorry," he blurted out, the shock on
her face tinged with confusion. Pulling him close, she held
him until the emotions subsided and the sobs abated.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she finally asked. He didn’t
answer and a sudden realisation began to cross her furrowed
brow. She gently pulled away, disentangling herself and
moving to the edge of the bed. "There’s someone else, isn’t
there?"
"No, not anymore."
She reached out and squeezed his hand. "Tell me, John,
please."
He turned and faced her, his eyes red-rimmed, the
embarrassment and pain partially hidden by the darkness.
"I'm damaged goods," he choked, the spent emotion charging
the small room with an air of expectancy. She waited, her
mind racing, the thoughts jangling as she wondered what he
was going to tell her. "We had a little girl, her name was Julie.
She was five, almost six when my ex-wife took her and Jimmy
to Houston. Susan had apparently been having an affair with
a high-flyer in the oil business." He hesitated. Natasha had
moved closer and was again resting her arm across his chest.
"I wasn't a good father; never there, always reporting on
someone else's troubles, never realising or caring that I had

138
problems of my own back home. I don't blame her for having
the affair."
"Marriages break up. You shouldn't blame yourself."
"She eventually married the guy, his name’s Darrell." Again
he hesitated and again she waited for him to find the right
words. "One night, they were driving home from a restaurant
and the front tyre blew out. The car skidded across the road
and into the side of a parked truck…"
Natasha held her breath, fearing the worst and hoping he
was going to say something else.
"The cops told me later he'd been drinking, although they
never charged him with anything. He broke his pelvis and
smashed up an arm pretty bad. Susan was wearing a seatbelt; it
probably saved her life. Jimmy wasn't in the car, I don’t know
why." He paused again, the emotions churning inside, the pain
constricting his chest, his breathing laboured and audible.
"Julie was thrown into the front." Natasha closed her eyes, the
realisation of what he was telling her becoming all too clear.
"She was killed?"
The tears burnt his cheeks, the sobs returning and making
it hard to breathe. He couldn’t speak or form the sounds,
barely managing to nod his head as the word 'killed'
reverberated around the room. "They said it was instant, her
little head crushed by the impact." He cried aloud, the pain
flowing, ten years of pent-up anger and frustration coursing
through his veins. "It was my fault," he sobbed. "If I'd been a
better father she wouldn’t have been in his car, she wouldn’t
have been in Houston, she wouldn’t have been there...."
Natasha pulled him close. "You can’t blame yourself," she
said again, knowing that nothing she could say would take
away the years of pain and hurt.
"I've rejected my son, blaming him for living and not being
there to protect his sister. I lost them both."
"I understand," she murmured, thinking about her own
father and the feelings of desertion his death had created
within her own mind.

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 "I’ve never met his wife, never seen their children, always
finding excuses not to visit them. And at night, in the dark,
that’s when the dreams come. I see Julie, she's calling to me,
her arms open. I see her lying on the bed, her body broken,
her eyes closed, her hair matted and covered in dried blood."
The tears came again and, for a long time, she held him
close, rocking him gently until he fell into an uneasy sleep.
The small room was charged with emotion, emotion she could
feel but not fathom. The man lying beside her was wracked
with pain and guilt; a father who had not yet learned how to
mourn for a little girl he’d so tragically lost. He had certainly
been right about one thing, he was damaged but as dawn
broke she realised that he had also opened his heart and told
her his innermost secrets and fears. It was this very
vulnerability that made him special, made him different from
the other men she had lain beside in the darkness.

140
Thursday, November 29th

"I won’t ask what kind of night you had." Daniels smiled,
walking into the small lounge. Capriotti was already
dressed and had relit the fire, having awoken early and crept
out from beneath her bed covers. He felt embarrassed,
ashamed of showing his emotions but something had
changed, something important and he knew it had everything
to do with the girl upstairs.
"Good, I won’t have to lie then," he said, finishing his
coffee. "Incidentally, we tried to look at those files last night
but someone forgot to retrieve the universal plug from my
hotel room."
"Well, slap my wrists, I guess I’d better rush back over there
and pick it up," Daniels said with exaggerated sarcasm.
Capriotti ignored the jibe. "We got into the header page
though and according to the file her father died on November
twenty-second, nineteen sixty-three."
"Coincidence," Daniels snorted, dropping his bulk onto
the couch. "You’re going to tell me next that he’s the real
JFK."
"You know something, I’m not so sure anymore. There are
over five hundred pages on those disks, which at the very
least suggests the Russians thought Kerchenko important. If
they did surgically change him, then you’ve got to wonder
why?"
"A swap?" Daniels suggested with mock incredulity.
"What other reason would they have?"
"Trust me, even those idiot White House staffers might
have noticed something amiss when Kennedy suddenly began
talking with a Russian accent!"
"Perhaps, but then we send agents over here who speak
perfectly accented Russian."
Before Daniels could reply, Natasha came down the narrow

141
wooden stairs. "What are you two arguing about?" She crossed
the room and stood beside Capriotti.
"Discussing, not arguing," Daniels corrected her and then
added, "and something we all need to do if we’re going to get
out of here. By my calculation, we’ve two choices: drive to a
friendly border or find safe passage on a ship. If we try to
board a plane they’ll pick us up at passport control."
"Natasha hasn’t got a passport, so flying’s out anyway."
"Another thing," Daniels continued, dismissing the thought
that Natasha might be coming with them, "if we’re going to
drive, we’ll need another car because the police will already have
discovered that Sergei’s is missing. There’s a Reuters’ office in
Leningrad, but the local head is Russian and won’t be too happy
about helping us. That means we’re going to have to go it alone."
"I might have an idea."
Daniels looked at the girl, unsure if she fully realised the
desperate position they were all in.
"I used to work for a shipping company down at the docks.
I’m sure my old boss would help, particularly if the price was
right."
"I don’t know," Daniels said uneasily. "The fewer people we
involve at this stage, the better our chances of getting away
from here."
"And you have a better suggestion?" Capriotti asked,
irritated by his colleague’s negative sounding response. "You
said yourself we only have two options. Leningrad is one of the
biggest seaports in the world and once out on the Baltic we
should be safe."
Daniels turned and looked directly at Natasha. "Never
mind me, I’m just an old chauvinist at heart. How well do you
know the guy who runs the shipping company?"
"Pretty well," she replied, ignoring the sideways glance
from Capriotti. "I worked for him for three years and was
privy to the deals he used to do on the side. He’s not Mafia or
anything but would get into a lot of trouble if someone
reported him to the OMON."

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 "It’s got to be worth a try?" Capriotti was looking pointedly
at his friend.
"Agreed, but only if we stop off on the way and get
something to eat. I’m starving."
***
Frank Harvey was travelling as David Goldstein, a Toronto-
based businessman dealing in gold and precious stones. The
company he supposedly worked for existed and had
international offices in London, Bonn and Paris. He was
stopping off in Amsterdam, ostensibly to attend a trade fair,
and then moving on to Moscow for several unspecified
meetings.
As Natasha drove the Skoda towards the Leningrad docks,
Harvey was sitting in Schipol airport, a glass of mineral water
in his hand. He had arrived two hours earlier on a KLM flight
from Montreal. His passport entry visa had already been
stamped in Langley and showed that he had entered the
country five days earlier. In his briefcase were genuine receipts
from the Schipol Hilton which would prove, if necessary, that
he had eaten and slept in the hotel since the previous Monday.
Hidden in a false base of his briefcase was a file on Dmitri
Orlanov, two other passports and ten thousand dollars in cash.
He had used one of the other passports to enter Holland.
During the seven-hour flight he had studied the file. In
many ways, Orlanov was very much like himself: a career
professional shafted by the changing system. They were
approximately the same age and both had been sidelined by
the very people they had dedicated a life of service to. Harvey
could not help but admire the man he had been sent to
terminate.
Getting up, he returned his glass to the bar and walked
down the long terminal to the Aeroflot departure gate, his
thoughts turning to the last time he had been in Moscow and
the stark fact that the world was now a very different place.

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 ***
Capriotti and Daniels were sitting alone in the Skoda, their
breath misting up the windscreen. Natasha had been inside the
nondescript wooden building for the best part of thirty
minutes, having agreed that it might be better if she made the
introductory approach on her own. Although he knew it was
both childish and churlish, Capriotti could not help nor
suppress the gnawing feelings of jealousy emanating from the
pit of his stomach.
Their initial lovemaking had been both hungry and
intense; their senses heightened by the feelings of danger and
uncertainty that continued to surround them. Later, and after
making love again, he had been left wondering what twist of
fate had brought this beautiful creature into his life. Never
before had he opened up and spoken about Julie or the dreams
that plagued his dark nights.
She was now trying to negotiate illegal passage with her old
boss and, for some unfathomable reason, he felt insecure, the
other man a part of her past and possessing something
secretive and intimate that Capriotti could not.
"A penny for them."
"That’s all their worth." He felt ashamed of the jealous
feelings now pervading his thought process. "Do you think
she’s okay?"
"I haven’t seen any blue lights yet."
Capriotti smiled. Daniels was a pragmatist and had
probably seen all this and more over his forty years in the
business. "You met Kennedy," he continued, trying to steer the
subject away from Natasha and his conflicting feelings. "What
was he really like?"
Daniels leaned forward and put his arms over the driver’s
seat, his mind suddenly transported back to another time.
"What was Kennedy like," he repeated, aloud and to himself.
"To be honest I’m not sure. I guess like most people there was
a public image as well as a private one. He could be charming,
at times disarmingly so. I think in many ways he was naive and

144
perhaps in awe of the position he had been given. Having said
that, he was one of the first politicians to realise the power of
television although I’m not sure whether he, or for that matter
anyone at that time, appreciated just how powerful the
medium was. They say it was television and the Nixon debates
that won him the election but personally, I think it was old
Joe’s money and a lot of help from "Mooney" Giancana and
the teamsters. Then there's Johnson’s contribution. Without
question, it was LBJ who pulled in the southern states, many
of whom still balked at the thought of having a Catholic
president."
Capriotti was listening intently, intrigued by the older
man's memories of the past. "Did you vote for him?"
"A die-hard Republican like me? For my sins, I voted for
Nixon." He hesitated, thinking back to that cold November
day. "It was a close run thing though. Kennedy won by
something like a hundred thousand votes and I seem to
remember it worked out as one tenth of one percent of votes
cast. It was definitely the smallest margin this century, maybe
ever."
"Where did you meet him?"
"Vienna. There was a huge press pack following them all over
Europe. He met De Gaulle in Paris but none of us could get
close because the French went wild over Jackie. They loved her,
particularly when she got up and spoke to them in their own
language. There’s no doubt she was the Princess Diana of her
day and once or twice he got pretty hosed off about the
attention she was getting. One off-the-cuff comment went
around the world." He paused, as if trying to remember the
exact wording of the quote, "'I’m the man who accompanied
Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it.' It was in
every paper, except no one pointed out that the ‘I have enjoyed
it’ was said with ill-disguised sarcasm. I think he was a vain man,
but with the ability to see the funny side of most situations."
"You said something the other day about the encounter
with Khrushchev?"

145
 "A complete disaster," Daniels affirmed with genuine
conviction. "I interviewed him after their first meeting and he
told me it was like dealing with his father all over again; all
give and no take. Maybe it was the age difference, maybe
Kennedy’s inexperience, but after Vienna it seemed the
Russians had the upper hand. They started to build the Berlin
Wall and later, of course, there was the missile crisis. We never
knew then just how close the world came to nuclear
annihilation. Some commentators said at the time it was a
defining moment in Kennedy’s administration and that he
seemed to grow in stature, at least in the world’s eyes."
"But not you?"
"It was the worst kind of macho politics. A year after
Khrushchev backed down and the missiles were pulled out,
Kennedy was shot…" Daniels hesitated, remembering his own
emotions on the fateful day. "Betty cried like a baby when it
came over the radio."
Capriotti thought back to the packed Irish bar, Delaney
and the flickering black and white television screen in the
corner. "Jimmy was convinced that the CIA had assassinated
Kennedy. He pilloried Judge Earl Warren’s Commission
because he knew Jack Ruby had hated Kennedy and should
have praised rather than shot Oswald. We interviewed
Oswald’s wife, Marina, and some of their neighbours; Delaney
was certain he’d been set up."
"We’ll probably never know, at least not in our lifetime."
He looked over towards the wooden building. "If that girl of
yours doesn’t come out soon, I’m going to fade away. I’m
starving."
As he spoke, the door opened and Natasha walked down
the steps and into the mud and slush. Behind her was a
middle-aged man wearing a smart suit. He glanced over
towards the car and then turned and said something to the
girl. She nodded, shook his hand and walked back towards the
two Americans.
They watched as she crossed the muddy yard, Capriotti

146
wondering irrationally what she saw in him. He leaned over
and opened the door, both men waiting impatiently until she
started the car. "He’ll help us. There's a freighter leaving later
this evening and another tomorrow night. If we can, we
should probably try to catch the one tomorrow. It’s going
directly from here to Rotterdam; the one leaving tonight has
two or three stops on the way to Stavanger in Norway."
"Was he suspicious?" Daniels asked, as she pulled the car
out of the huge yard and back onto the main road.
She looked in the mirror. "He wasn’t happy about it, until
I reminded him about the second-hand Lada cars he’s been
shipping in from Europe and the import taxes he conveniently
forgets to pay. I also gave him the two thousand dollars."
Capriotti winced. He knew all too well that Mike Jarvis was
never going to believe this story.
They drove into the centre of Leningrad and parked.
Natasha went to a food store and queued for provisions whilst
the two men located an electrical shop and bought a universal
plug. They then found a small cafe around the corner from the
car and Daniels ordered a large plate of Russian sausage, black
bread and copious amounts of local tea. Capriotti decided to
give the food a miss and opted instead for a pot of coffee. It
was almost an hour later and Daniels was wiping the last drops
of gravy off his plate with the bread when Natasha appeared
carrying two large paper bags in her arms. She ordered another
coffee and they spent a further hour discussing their plan and
what they would need for the freighter. The first thing was
more money to bribe the ship’s captain; the second was warm
clothing for her and Daniels. They agreed the direct route was
best and that they needed the time to get the money and
clothes together.
It was growing dark as they paid for the food and left the
small cafe. The Skoda was parked further along the street and,
as they approached it from the other side, a police car drew up
alongside. Two uniformed men got out and seemed to be
checking the numberplate and then one of them was speaking

147
excitedly into his radio. Handing one of the bags to Daniels,
Capriotti took hold of Natasha’s arm and whispered that she
should tell them a Russian joke. She nodded that she
understood and began speaking aloud, squeezing his hand as
they came abreast of the car and the two policemen. He
laughed out loud, his elbow ensuring that Daniels joined in,
neither policeman giving them a second look as they casually
continued past the car and on up the hill to the junction at the
top. They were turning right as another two police cars, their
lights flashing and sirens blaring, screeched to a halt beside
Sergei’s Lada.
"We need to get our things from the house and find some
alternative accommodation," Daniels said, trying hard to
catch his breath. "If the police know we’re here, it’s going to
make it all the more difficult to catch that freighter."
***
Colonel Al-Sawabi had been surprised by the call. He had
been sitting in his small Embassy apartment listening to the
BBC’s World Service. Although a patriot, he was neither naive
nor indoctrinated enough to believe what he heard on
Baghdad Radio. Orlanov wanted to meet and had suggested
the Moscow Arts Theatre, three blocks down from the
Intourist hotel. Al-Sawabi had caught the Metro and was now
standing on the steps of the theatre. The snow was virtually
horizontal, the wind-chill pushing the temperature down
towards the minus-ten figure. He cursed Orlanov, the Russian
winter and his posting.
Five uncomfortable minutes passed before Orlanov’s
Mercedes drew up to the bottom of the steps. The tinted black
window slid down and the Russian called the Iraqi over to his
car. Al-Sawabi gratefully settled into the warmth of the back
seat as the Mercedes pulled away from the curb and moved
quickly into the heavy traffic. "I thought you might appreciate
dinner at the Savoy," the Russian said as they turned left and
made for ul. Rozhdestvenka 3.

148
 Twenty minutes later they were being shown to a secluded
table at the back of the Rococo styled restaurant, Orlanov
stopping to speak with several of the restaurant’s patrons as
they crossed the floor. If Al-Sawabi was disappointed by the
fact he was pointedly ignored, he did not show it, having long
realised that Arabs were treated as second class citizens the
world over. His Russian hosts were no better or worse than
their European and American counterparts.
Once the two men were seated the wine waiter approached
and Orlanov ordered a glass of claret before pulling a small cigar
from a silver humidor and offering one to his guest, who politely
refused. The Russian lit up and blew smoke across the table.
"Nothing’s come back on those names you gave me,"
Orlanov said almost casually, before leaning forward and
switching to a hushed, conspiratorial tone. "To be honest, I
didn’t think they would. Ever since Gorbachev came to power,
the KGB has taken a back seat. Our illustrious leader has been
diverting funds away from both the military and security
services to feed the peasants. Everything’s been turned upside
down."
Al-Sawabi poured himself a glass of water, his fingers
nervously playing with the heavy salt pot sitting on the linen
tablecloth. "I’m disappointed, but then you didn’t invite me to
the best hotel in Moscow just to tell me that."
Orlanov leaned back again. He appeared to be savouring
the moment. "Very perceptive of you." Another waiter
appeared and discretely lingered, waiting to take their order.
The menu selection was breathtaking and ranged between
Russian, French and Scandinavian delicacies. Al-Sawabi chose
the marinated lamb, Orlanov the lobster. "The news from the
Saudi Arabian border would seem grim," Orlanov continued,
once the waiter had retired to the kitchen. "At least from the
Iraqi point of view."
"Iraq knows how to wage a desert war," Al-Sawabi bristled.
"Bush is going to learn that he cannot threaten us without
paying a heavy cost."

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 "Ah, the very word," Orlanov said, removing a folded piece
of paper from his pocket and placing it on the table. The Arab
stretched forward but Orlanov placed his hand over the single
page. "This information will cost you one hundred million
dollars."
Al-Sawabi's whole demeanour suddenly stiffened, his
expression hard and guarded. "We agreed to pay you one
million, Major, and payment was solely dependent on results."
"One million for nothing more than title-tattle on Bush,
Netanyahu and the other key players on your speculative list.
Worthless gossip which, even if it had been available, would
have little effect on the outcome of the coalition aims."
"Am I to assume that you have found something else?" Al-
Sawabi's eyes were fixed on the piece of paper, the Iraqi
suddenly sensing the ebullient mood of the man across the
table.
Orlanov smiled, his dark eyes bright and calculating.
"Something so devastating that the Americans would pay
almost anything to keep it from becoming public."
Colonel Al-Sawabi’s own eyes narrowed. There was
something in Orlanov’s tone that hinted he was not offering to
sell the information directly but rather informing the Iraqi
that it might be sold to the highest bidder. "I’m not sure I
understand your meaning, Major."
"Oh, but I think you do, Colonel," Orlanov said, continuing
to smile. "I am offering you a means of ensuring the Americans
withdraw from the desert and leave Saddam to enjoy the
financial spoils of Kuwait. Of course, it’s up to you and your
leaders to decide how much that information is worth."
The food arrived and Orlanov ordered a bottle of Chablis
Premier Cru. Neither man spoke until the bottle had been
uncorked, tasted, confirmed as excellent and poured into the
Russian’s glass.
Al-Sawabi accepted a glass of the white wine. "Am I to
assume that you will be making this same offer to the
Americans?"

150
 "I think you know where my personal allegiances lie,"
Orlanov said softly. "Let’s just say that, if Saddam hesitates, I
may need a fall-back position. Time is of the essence since I’ve
no doubt the Americans already know that I have the
information."
"What sort of time-frame are we talking about?"
"Twenty-four hours, no longer." There was a sudden
firmness in his voice.
"I will need proof that the information is as damning as you
say it is."
Orlanov’s eyes rolled in mock disappointment. "But of
course you will," he said, slowly pushing the piece of paper
across the tablecloth. "Take a look at this and then tell me if
you think my price is ungenerous."
Al-Sawabi picked up the page and read it in silence. Once
he had finished, he read it a second time. Finally, he handed it
back to Orlanov who again placed it in his pocket. Orlanov
watched as the Iraqi tried to digest the information he had just
read. "I don't believe it, this can’t be true."
"Your choice." Orlanov smiled, enjoying the succulent
white flesh of the shelled lobster. "What matters is the
Americans know it is true and will pay my price."
"You have collaborative evidence?"
"Over five hundred pages detailing the surgery, build-up,
switch, transfer of information and the lead up to the
assassination."
Al-Sawabi finished his lamb and sat back in his seat. The
information would promote him to Baghdad and a position of
power within the government. He could already imagine
Saddam’s praise and the wealth that would be bestowed on his
family. "One hundred million is a lot of money," he said,
trying to place a cap on his growing euphoria.
Orlanov sneered. "By my guess it’s less than twelve hours of
Kuwait’s oilfield production. If Saddam would rather lose his
multibillion-dollar military hardware and the Kuwaiti fields,
then quite obviously I’ve overestimated your foresight. Perhaps

151
I should have approached Ubedidi, instead of his underling.
I’m sure he would appreciate the generosity of my offer and
the political advantages it would bring."
Al-Sawabi flushed. The insult had struck home, as Orlanov
had known it would. "I will contact Baghdad tonight. If the
information is accurate, then I am sure we can meet your
terms. When will I contact you?"
"Leave that to me."
They finished their meal in silence and then the Russian
rose from the table and called over the waiter, signed the bill
and crossed back to the door. Their coats were waiting for them
as they stepped into the marbled foyer. "I trust you can find
your own way home," Orlanov said, striding through the hotel
doors to his Mercedes already parked at the bottom of the
steps. Al-Sawabi shivered but this time it was not from the cold.
***
Karina was already in bed by the time Orlanov returned to his
house in the southwest of Tverskaya, the same district where
Chekhov, Pushkin and Tolstoy had lived and died. His home
overlooked Patriarch’s Pond, an area regarded as one of the
most exclusive in Moscow. A large walled garden, guarded by
electronically controlled black metal gates, surrounded the
magnificent house. Orlanov’s neighbours included several
Politburo members and other like-minded businessmen.
He poured himself a brandy and walked through to his
study. The desk was a mirror image of the one in his office,
excepting that it was built from Indonesian dark wood
mahogany, rather than oak. He sat down in the matching chair
and considered his next move. He had little doubt the
Americans would already know that his access code had been
used to break into the Stasi files. The CIA was just as efficient
as the KGB had once been. He switched on his own computer,
pulled the disks from his inside pocket, inserted them into the
drive and flicked through the database until he came to the
CIA memos. Scrolling down the screen, he found the name he

152
wanted, checked his watch and then dialled the public number
for the CIA’s Langley office. He loved the Americans'
openness. A Russian citizen could not pick up the phone and
call the KGB in Moscow, not that a Russian citizen would
have ever wanted to.
He waited for the line to connect, listened to the efficient
drawl at the other end and asked to be put through to the
Deputy Director’s office. The operator put him on hold and
he listened to Greensleeves until another efficient drawl came
onto the line. He repeated his request and the woman told
him that the Deputy was in a meeting and could not be
disturbed. He told her his name and that he was calling from
Moscow and suggested she might wish to interrupt the
meeting. Greensleeves returned and then a man’s firm voice
came onto the line.
"Fulbright."
"I think you know who I am and what I might have in my
possession."
The line was silent for several seconds as John Fulbright
collected his thoughts. "I’m going to give you a secure
number," the American finally replied. "I’d like you to hang
up and then call me directly back." Orlanov wrote down the
number and then replaced the receiver. He rose, refilled his
glass and returned to the desk, flicking through the files on his
screen before casually dialling the secure number. It answered
on the first ring.
"How do I know you’re who you say you are?"
"If not, then why would I choose to phone you, Deputy
Director?"
"Can you give me some confirmation?"
"Where to begin?" Orlanov murmured, looking at his
computer screen. He paused, enjoying the game they were
both playing. "How about Kerchenko, Vienna, Operation
Poslezavtra...need I go on?"
"You accessed the Stasi files?" Fulbright asked, a cold hand
suddenly gripping his chest.

153
 Orlanov leaned back in his chair and placed his feet on the
desktop. He was enjoying baiting the CIA man. "I would
guess you’ve already sent a team to retrieve the files and make
sure I don't celebrate Christmas with my family?"
"What do you want?" Fulbright looked up, waving the
Director into the office and pointing to the second extension.
"I’d like to see the New Year and beyond," Orlanov
growled. "I’d also like to make sure that my retirement is
trouble free and continues to allow me life’s little luxuries."
"How much are we talking about?"
"Oh, I don't know, let’s pick a nice round figure, say one
hundred million."
Fulbright looked across to the Director. The older man
hesitated, but then nodded. "We might be able to meet your
needs, depending on the absolute exclusivity and authenticity
of the package we receive in return."
"Might is not the word I wanted to hear, Deputy Director,
particularly since I’ve already been approached by a member of
Iraq’s security services."
"You did say you wanted to see Christmas and the New
Year?" Fulbright's voice was suddenly very tight and very
menacing.
"I trust that wasn’t a threat?" Orlanov's own voice equally
hard and cold.
"Major," Fulbright replied, mollifying his tone, "you have
us at a distinct disadvantage. We want the information in your
possession and will meet your terms, but it would be fair to say
that we would be concerned should you make overtures
towards the Iraqi government."
"I’m sure you would. My terms are simple, you ensure that
the money is deposited into a bank account of my choice and
I will give you the disks. Make any attempt to retrieve them or
disturb my peace of mind and they will turn up in Baghdad."
"How do we know you don't have copies?"
"Deputy Director," Orlanov said, the sarcastic inflection
emphasising his disappointment with the question. "If the

154
information were to later become public then my life would
not be worth ten of your cents. It is in both our interests that
Operation Poslezavtra remains secret."
Fulbright mentally acknowledged the Russian’s logic. "How
do we contact you?"
"You don’t. I will call you at the same time tomorrow with
an account number. If the money is deposited within twenty-
four hours, I will ensure that the disks are delivered to a
contact of your choice at the American Embassy on Novinsky
bulvar."
Before Fulbright could answer, the phone went dead. He
turned and looked at the CIA Director. "We’ve got to stop
Harvey," he said, wondering just how they could do that.
Orlanov refilled his glass and switched off the study lamp.
As he turned, he noticed the green flashing light on his
answering machine. He hesitated, crossed back over to his
desk, punched the button, listened to a man's voice and then
called Konstantin Gouzenko. The NKVD man was in bed. "I
want you to catch the next plane to Leningrad," he ordered,
before explaining the message left by the owner of the
shipping importer.
***
Daniels and Capriotti were sitting on the edge of a three-
quarter bed. Under the nailed closed window was a cracked
porcelain sink and to the left a three-legged wardrobe perched
precariously against the far wall, a single layer of ill-fitting
linoleum covering the rest of the floor. The small lodging
house was situated on the outskirts of the city and owned by
the mother of one of Natasha’s closest university friends.
They had initially returned to Natasha’s house and collected
the computer, Capriotti’s suitcase and some warm clothes for
her, Daniels complaining that yet again he was the only one
without a change of clothing. He had suggested the Hilton but
Capriotti pointed out that anyone looking for two Yanks
would first check the American owned hotels. Somewhat

155
reluctantly, he had agreed, and an hour later they had found
themselves standing on the boarding house steps whilst
Natasha explained their predicament to her friend’s mother.
Pleased to see her and willing to help them, their evening meal
had been simple but filling and the owner had even offered to
wash Daniels’ undergarments and shirt, although the dressing
gown proffered in return barely covered his enormous girth.
"I’m not sure about this Dostoyevsky fella," Daniels was
saying. "It can’t be coincidence that an hour or so after we
leave his office the police track down the car."
"I must admit, the same thought had also crossed my
mind."
"The problem is," Daniels continued, "we don't have too
many choices and now they know we’re in Leningrad it’s going
to be hard to find another mode of transportation."
The door opened and a freshly showered Natasha entered
the room. Her hair was wet and held up in a white towel and
she too was wearing a borrowed dressing gown. Daniels got up
off the bed and squeezed past her whilst trying to ensure a
modicum of decency. "At least they gave you one that fits."
Capriotti laughed as Daniels again tried to pull the folds of
the stretched towelling robe together. "It might have
something to do with her figure."
"I’m going to bed," he sniffed. "I’ll see you both in the
morning."
As the door closed behind him, Capriotti got up off the bed
and slowly opened the folds of Natasha’s gown, his hands
moving eagerly over her naked body. Their lips met.
"Enough," she squealed, pulling away. "Is the battery
recharged yet?"
"Mine is," he rasped, trying to pull her back towards the
bed.
"Later, we need to go over the file."
"I know." His tone was laced with exaggerated resignation
as he retrieved the tape recorder and loaded the first disk into
the computer.

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 For the next eight hours, she transcribed page after page
into the tape recorder. Capriotti listened to every word,
handing her fresh tapes and storing the recorded ones in his
briefcase. Some of the files were in English and contained
references to CIA and FBI documents, taped phone calls and
transcribed surveillance minutes. It took him all night to print
these out on his small bubble jet printer, his emotions
fluctuating between disbelief, horror and growing anger. The
same cold finger of fear that had gripped Orlanov the previous
night now gripped the American. He knew, without a shadow
of a doubt, that all their lives were in terrible danger.
***
Brent Scowcroft looked on in stunned disbelief as the CIA
Director and his deputy took the President through the
mountain of files now sitting on the Oval Office desk. It was
late and Bush had sat impassively through most of the three-
hour briefing, his face showing little or no emotion. As each
file was opened and explained, it seemed to Scowcroft that his
whole life was being disembowelled in front of his eyes. He
looked over at Bush, feeling sure he must be going through the
same seesawing emotions. He was of course aware the
President had himself once been CIA Director, but it was
inconceivable that the man had been privy to the information
now casually strewn around the Oval Office.
Initially Fulbright had outlined Kennedy’s early
background, including the FBI’s files that proved beyond any
doubt that both Jack and Joe Kennedy had been involved with
the Mafia and in particular Joseph Giancana. He had
produced Hoover’s personal files, which had never been kept
in the FBI building that now bore the disgraced man’s name.
Not only had they described how Democratic campaign funds
were channelled to the Chicago mob, but they also seemed to
suggest that the President was being blackmailed by certain
munitions and armaments companies to sanction lucrative
military contracts.

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 One in particular involved a six-point-five billion dollar
contract for a tactical fighter known as the TFX project. It was
later renamed the F-111 and became one of the most criticised
defence projects in modern history. A Senate Inquiry set up in
nineteen sixty-three was abandoned weeks after Kennedy’s
death at the direct instigation of Lyndon Johnson. Fulbright
showed that the new President had acted on specific advice
given to him by Director McCone.
Fulbright had then taken them through the President’s
direct involvement in the Bay of Pig’s affair and explained how
Giancana had been co-opted to assassinate the Cuban leader.
He produced Richard Bissell’s personal files and later Director
Dulles’ files. The evidence was overwhelming.
Bush’s impassive demeanour had slipped momentarily as
Fulbright showed them the CIA’s Top Secret files, along with
explicit photographs of Kennedy with over two dozen
different women. It was obvious that many of the pictures had
been taken with hidden cameras, neither the President nor his
numerous and varied bed partners realising that they were
being filmed. Bush was appalled at the amount of damning
information the CIA had collated.
Fulbright had then gone over the involvement of Judith
Exner and her sexual liaisons with both Kennedy and
Giancana. He showed them the irrefutable surveillance
photographs, proving that Kennedy had given Exner large
sums of cash, which she had then taken to Giancana in
Chicago. He pulled out Exner’s unexpurgated testimony made
at the Senate’s Church committee and explained how and why
it had been covered up.
Scowcroft had long known that Kennedy was not the
crusading god portrayed in the media but, and as each file was
opened and explained, it became clear that Nixon had been an
angel by comparison. He began to appreciate why the files had
never been made public and why the Warren Report and the
later Church committee had been coerced to gloss over the truth.
The President stirred uneasily and Fulbright suggested that

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perhaps they should take a break. Bush agreed and told the
CIA men he wanted to speak alone with his National Advisor.
"Christ, what an unholy mess," the President said, as the
Deputy Director closed the door. "I can’t believe what they’re
telling me." He rose and stretched his tired limbs.
"It’s unconscionable; if only half of what they are saying is
true, then Kennedy was little more than a crook."
"That’s the biggest understatement I’ve heard since taking
office," Bush groaned, crossing the great seal on the floor and
pouring coffee into a mug. "I remember Kennedy as a lady’s
man but good God, those pictures; some of them were taken
right here in the White House swimming pool!"
"If the tabloids get hold of them, the Camelot myth is
going to be blown away. I can now see why Fulbright was
concerned about the Stone film and the feelings it could
generate."
There was a soft knock on the door. Bush returned to the
desk and called the two men back into the room.
"Mr President, I know what we’ve shown you is disturbing
but I’m afraid it’s only the tip of the iceberg."
"There surely can’t be more?" Bush exclaimed, looking
across at the two men standing in front of his desk. "You’ve
already crucified a twentieth-century icon."
"I’m sorry, but from here on in it gets worse. I think it
might be best if Mr Scowcroft left the room."
"What?" The National Advisor snapped, jumping up off his
chair.
"I must insist, Mr President," Director Webster said firmly,
looking towards Bush. "The final group of files are most
definitely for your eyes only."
The President sighed, remembering when he had been
Director and having to spin Gerald Ford a similar line. "Brent,
I’ll call you later."
Scowcroft looked as though he wanted to object but
instead, he slowly crossed to the door. "I’ll be outside if you
need me."

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 The two CIA men waited for the door to close before
turning back to the desk and a tired-looking President.
"Well?"
"Have you heard of Operation Poslezavtra, Mr President?"
Fulbright asked. Bush shook his head.
"It’s Russian and translates as 'the day after tomorrow'. It
was coined in the late fifties by Nikita Khrushchev."
"What’s he got to do with this?"
"In June sixty-one Kennedy met with the Russian leader in
Vienna. I’m sure you must remember, sir; to all intents and
purposes it was an unmitigated catastrophe. Kennedy came
away with his tail between his legs and several months later the
East Germans began building the Berlin Wall."
Bush cast his mind back to his early years in the Gulf Coast
oil industry and the press coverage of the day. "I was with
Zapata back then but seem to recall the commentators
blaming Kennedy’s poor performance on that showbiz
charlatan, ‘Dr Feelgood’."
Fulbright smiled. "The quack who injected Kennedy with
a daily cocktail of wonder drugs to supposedly ward off a
recurrence of Addison's disease."
"I don’t understand; why is the Vienna meeting so
important?"
Over the next half-hour, the Deputy Director explained
how Kennedy had been lured into a Russian ‘honey-trap‘,
hours after his third and final meeting with Khrushchev. The
girl in question had been a Russian agent who bore a striking
resemblance to Marilyn Monroe. Kennedy, attracted by her
blatant overtures, had arranged to meet her in an exclusive
hotel suite. The Russians had orchestrated the whole scenario,
the room rigged months earlier, Fulbright explaining that
whilst relaxing after sex, the real Kennedy had been drugged
and replaced with Alexander Kerchenko. The Secret Service
men on guard outside the hotel room had been unaware of the
hidden space behind the solid looking bedroom wardrobe or
the existence of the doppelganger.

160
 Bush sat open mouthed as Fulbright explained in graphic
detail how Kerchenko had been cosmetically changed to look
exactly like the President. He took Bush through the training
regime at Gorky and produced files proving the Russians had
been planning the switch for several years before the
presidential elections. He showed him pictures of Kerchenko
before and after the surgical operations and then pulled out
the Russian files on Kennedy that detailed the history of his
life from the day he was born.
Bush stared down at the pictures spread out over his desk.
He picked up one and crossed the room to the wall and a
picture of Kennedy shaking hands with John Glenn. "It’s
unbelievable," he whispered. "The man's an exact double."
Fulbright waited until the President was again behind his
desk. "Once back in Washington, Kerchenko assumed the role
of President of the United States."
"I don't believe this," Bush said, a slight tremble in his
voice. "His wife would have known. There are some things
you just can’t hide, can’t change." He suddenly looked
embarrassed, realising that the two men in front of him were
well aware of what he was alluding to.
"Apparently, the Kennedys had not engaged in any
intimate sexual activity for some time," the CIA Director said,
averting his own eyes.
"Even so, they’d been married for nearly eight years."
"That’s true but, you must remember, her real husband was
a prisoner behind the Iron Curtain." Fulbright said, hesitating
and looking across at the Director. James Webster nodded his
assent. "There’s something else; we believe that Mrs Kennedy
may have been attracted to the new Kennedy."
"That's preposterous!"
"Not really, sir. Earlier, we detailed the President’s obsessive
need for intimate female company. Kerchenko was a trained
agent." It was Webster's time to hesitate as he tried to choose
his next words with care. "Trained in every department. It’s
not inconceivable that Mrs Kennedy found the man sexually

161
attractive. After all, he looked, spoke and acted like the real
Kennedy and it's public knowledge that after their European
tour they were seen together on a far more regular basis. It’s
also around that time that Monroe and the Exner woman were
removed from the President’s inner circle."
Bush thumped his balled fist onto the desktop. "I don't
believe this!"
"If you recall, sir, Mrs Kennedy had a baby son in August
sixty-three," Fulbright said, his voice low and respectful.
"Good God, this is unbelievable. Did no one suspect?"
"No, sir. If you think back to the time, you may remember
that his health appeared to improve after the European trip.
Commentators of the day even reported on how re-
invigorated Kennedy appeared."
"A Russian agent running this country, I can’t believe it."
Bush's voice was close to breaking point.
"And the same man who oversaw the building of the Berlin
Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis."
"No, it’s impossible! A Russian agent would have allowed
Khrushchev to place the nuclear warheads in Cuba. Kennedy
stood up to the Russians; took them to the brink of nuclear
holocaust. This can’t be true."
"We believe that’s when Khrushchev’s plan began to
unravel," Webster said. "By then Kerchenko had been in the
White House for over a year. It’s our contention that the man
had begun to play his part too well. He was the most powerful
man in the Western world and even then was being feted as
the West’s saviour. He had absolute power, a beautiful wife and
two ‘adopted’ children. It must have seemed a far cry from the
spartan training camp in Gorky."
"The situation came to a head in June sixty-three,"
Fulbright interrupted, "when Kerchenko gave the famous
‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ speech in West Berlin. It was
Kerchenko who propagated the arms race; Kerchenko who
told the world he wanted a man on the moon by the end of
the decade. It was Kerchenko, not Kennedy, who stood up

162
to the Russian President and brought the world to the
brink."
"You know this for certain?"
"Yes, sir. We received a coded message from the Kremlin
and a secret meeting was arranged between McCone and
Gromyko. We were given these files," he added, pointing
towards the desk.
"Jesus Christ, didn’t anyone stop to think that all of this
might have been a Russian bluff?"
Both Webster and Fulbright were taken aback by the
sudden and uncharacteristic outburst. "The CIA and the FBI
took fingerprints from his personal belongings and urine
samples from false traps in three of the executive toilets. In
addition, we managed to take a blood sample when the
President cut himself during one of the Kennedy family
football games up at Hyannis Port. The man in the White
House was most definitely not John Kennedy."
"And the Russians simply volunteered this information?"
Fulbright fidgeted in his chair; unsure just how much
information he should divulge to the man sitting on the other
side of the desk or, for that matter, the CIA Director to his
right. After all, both men were political appointees, not lifers,
like he was. His mind went back to the meeting in Vancouver,
and something Gromyko had said to McCone. "Sir,
Operation Poslezavtra was not only political, it was personal.
Khrushchev had a score to settle with America and Kerchenko
was his way of killing two birds with one stone."
Bush looked up from the file, his eyes no more than narrow
slits. "The assassination?"
Fulbright hesitated, unable to look directly at the man
across the desk. "CIA undercover operation, we had one
shooter in the Book Depository, another behind the fence on
the grassy knoll."
"And Oswald?"
"Innocent."
"Jesus, does this get any worse?"

163
 "Yes sir, I’m afraid it does. Two nights ago, we received a
report telling us that an ex-KGB Major had accessed the Stasi
mainframe in Berlin. He downloaded what, until then, was an
unknown copy of the Kerchenko file. We immediately sent a
man to retrieve the files and silence the KGB operative---"
"And?" Bush asked impatiently.
"This afternoon, that same KGB Major phoned Langley
and informed us that unless we deposit one hundred million
dollars in his account by three o’clock tomorrow afternoon,
Washington time, he will sell the file to the Iraqis."
The colour drained from the President’s face. "This is a
nightmare. What in Christ’s name am I supposed to do?" He
sat motionless behind the large desk, his head held tightly in
white knuckled hands. The two CIA men stood in silence,
wondering if things could get any worse.
"What happened to the real Kennedy?" the President
suddenly asked.
***
Colonel Al-Sawabi had sent the coded message eight hours
earlier. He had avoided using the normal channels, knowing
all too well that the Russians would be monitoring all calls,
faxes and telexes to and from the Iraqi Embassy. Instead, he
had written up the message in Arabic and then translated it
into the complicated code devised by his superiors in
Baghdad.
Borrowing an Embassy car, he had driven down to
Moscow's central post office, rightly assuming that, even if the
Russians did monitor faxes from their own post office, it
would take them days to track down who had sent them. By
then, the disks would be in a diplomatic pouch and on their
way to Baghdad.
The answer when it came was brief and to the point. He
was authorised to agree terms with Orlanov. The authorisation
came from Izzat Ibrahim, Iraq’s Deputy President.

164
Friday, November 30th

G ouzenko had arrived at Leningrad’s airport at seven thirty

the following morning. Orlanov had already called and
told Dostoyevsky to arrange transportation for the diminutive
NKVD man and he was ensconced in the importer’s office
before nine.
***
Daniels was surprised to find Capriotti and Natasha awake.
He was even more surprised when they told him they had been
up all night. His surprise turned to shock and then to stunned
disbelief as he read through the CIA documents Capriotti had
printed off his computer. Natasha had translated the pages in
chronological order and they sat him down and let him listen
to the tapes describing the initial switch and then the lead up
to the Berlin speech.
"This is incredible," he kept repeating as his friend
continued to feed him with more and more information.
"Why don't you take it through to your room? We're
exhausted and will need to get some sleep before tonight. Give
us a few hours and then give me a call."
Daniels agreed, gathering up the printouts and the tapes
scattered over the bed and returning to his own room. Natasha
removed her dressing gown and climbed under the covers as
Capriotti locked the door and then climbed in beside her.
"It’s horrible," she whispered, trying to hold back the tears.
"He never loved my mother; he used her."
"You don't know that. He was under orders. You read out
what happened to Kuptsy; if anything, it was your father who
was used."
"No, John," she said, the emphasis squarely on his name.
"He was a patriot first, a Russian second, a part-time lover
third and a father never. The West corrupted him, which was

165
why he was assassinated. If he had followed his instructions,
they would never have known. The system, Kennedy’s wife
and the power he was suddenly given seduced him. My
mother meant nothing to him, his daughter even less."
Capriotti knew what it was like to be a father and unable to
show his love or save his baby daughter. "We can’t begin to
imagine the pressure he must have been under," he said,
stroking her hair and holding her close until she finally drifted
off into an uneasy sleep.
He turned and faced the wall, his own thoughts jumbled
and jagged. During the long painful night he had realised that
both the Russians and Americans had killed to keep their
horrific past a secret and he was under no illusion that they
would continue to kill to ensure it remained a secret. When
sleep did finally come there were dark and mysterious figures
floating menacingly around John Capriotti’s troubled dreams.
***
Frank Harvey was a loner, the Firm having effectively dropped
him from their active list after the unfortunate demise of Rose
Delaney. He was known in the business as a freelance ‘wet-
boy’, which in essence meant that Harvey was a contract
assassin, the man they sent in when they had nothing to lose
and everything to gain.
Harvey had worked undercover in Eastern Europe,
Nicaragua, El Salvador and more recently in Iran and
Afghanistan. He was seen as an expendable asset and the fact
that he had survived and carried out his orders had more to do
with the single-minded drive of the man than the support and
planning of the Agency. The younger more impressionable
operatives had begun to refer to him as "Teflon Frankie"
because of his ability to extricate himself from any mess, no
matter what the situation. Harvey put his own survival down
to the simple fact he worked alone.
It was this same maxim which now found him sitting in a
small hotel off Sadovaya Spasskaya Ulitsa and only a stone’s

166
throw away from the Stalin commissioned monolith that was
the Sheremetev Hospital.
Harvey spoke passable Russian and during the early
seventies had worked undercover, first in Romania and then in
Czechoslovakia. He knew the Eastern Bloc mentality and the
once blind obedience of its citizens, having used this trait to
good effect during his time behind the old Iron Curtain.
Although the country may have begun to change, Harvey felt
sure it would take more than a few edicts to transform seventy
years of communist indoctrination.
He was now sitting on the hard single bed and considering
his options. The file lying beside him had very little
information on where he could find Orlanov and he doubted
whether the man would be listed in the Moscow phone
directory.
Harvey, although not an expert when it came to computers,
was aware that floppy disks could be copied and that hard
drives could be wiped yet still retain deleted memory. This
being the case, he knew he would have to track down Orlanov,
find the original disks and then make sure there were no
copies. He would also have to destroy any computer that
Orlanov may have had access to. The latter requirement made
his job all the more difficult and meant Orlanov would not
only have to talk but also show him where his computer access
points were. The thought of dragging an ex-KGB operative all
over Moscow did not excite him.
He removed his damp shoes and swung his legs onto the
bed. Kerchenko had been clever, damn clever. They had not
realised just how clever until after the man’s death.
Johnson had been given an appraisal of the situation several
weeks before the assassination. He had taken a lot of
convincing, but the bluff Texan had finally come around after
Director McCone had sat him down and gone through the
same files Fulbright and Webster had so recently spread across
the Oval Office desk. Once convinced, Johnson had suggested
a simple swap: Kerchenko for Kennedy.

167
 McCone had shown him the Giancana files and then gone
over the connection between Kennedy, General Dynamics and
the TFX contract. Johnson had understood the implications
but had pointed out that whilst Kennedy’s immoral behaviour
may have instigated the blackmail and extortion, it was
Kerchenko who had been caught handing over large sums of
money. John McCone had been impressed with the integrity
of the man and the painful effect the Kerchenko disclosure was
having on the country’s Vice-President.
He had carefully explained the worst case scenario and what
might happen if the Russians agreed to a swap. Kennedy
would return to the White House and the world might never
know that Kerchenko had spent the previous two years as the
country’s Commander-in-Chief. Of course, the Republican
senate committee investigating General Dynamics would
rumble on and at some point would probably discover
Kennedy’s involvement with the Californian-based company.
It did not matter that Kerchenko and not Kennedy had paid
over the money because, as far as the world was concerned,
there was no Kerchenko. McCone felt sure that once the TFX
events became public, there would be cries for Kennedy’s
impeachment. The polls would turn against him and
unscrupulous newspaper editors would begin printing stories
about Kennedy’s extra-curricular activities.
Kennedy, forced into a corner, would have only one option;
the man would go on national TV and tell the American
public that he had spent two years in a gulag whilst a Russian
agent had run their country. He would blame Kerchenko for
the bribes, extortion and indiscretions and the CIA and FBI
for failing to protect their President. The public would never
believe the story and Kennedy would still be impeached and
probably committed to a mental institution.
Worse still, if they returned Kerchenko, the Russians might
parade him on television and confirm Kennedy’s version of
events. McCone was not sure which of the two scenarios
would be worse, pointing out that it was a no-win situation,

168
Johnson slowly beginning to appreciate the difficult situation
the Director of the CIA was being forced to deal with.
McCone then took a personal risk and told the Vice-President
that it might be better to publicly kill off Kerchenko, and
therefore Kennedy, thereby ensuring that a new, untainted
man stepped into the Oval Office.
Johnson had nodded but had still not been fully convinced.
Kennedy was the elected President of the United States and as
such was the people’s choice. McCone had again pulled out
the files detailing the involvement of Giancana and the
teamsters and showing how they had manipulated Kennedy’s
wafer-thin victory over Nixon. The underlying threat was
undeniable; Johnson was a part of the Kennedy ticket. Again,
he went over the second scenario, detailing the political
ramifications for the American electoral system if the Russians
paraded Kerchenko as the man who had run the country for
the best part of two years. The public backlash would be
incalculable, particularly with the Cuban missile crisis so fresh
in their collective minds. McCone had quietly suggested that
the Vice-President’s party might never again see the day when
a Democratic President sat in the White House. He had
concluded by telling him that the United States could not
afford to return Kennedy to Washington and it would be
better to have a martyred deity than an impeached President.
Later that night, President-elect Johnson had given the
executive authorisation to terminate Alexander Kerchenko.
Fulbright had contacted Kennedy’s wife several days
following the heart wrenching televised funeral and the
sombre burial out at Arlington. She was still living in private
apartments in the White House. Harvey remembered the
meeting with Jacqueline Kennedy. He had gone with
Fulbright to the White House and been shown into the
spacious apartment in the west wing. He had felt at the time
that Fulbright had been far too tactful and accommodating.
The woman had not only known about Kerchenko but had
conspired and colluded with the cover-up.

169
 Fulbright had quietly but persistently asked her why she
had never contacted the secret services and spoken of her
disquiet. When she failed to answer immediately, he had
offered options, suggesting reasons for her silence. Harvey had
been painfully aware the CIA man was giving her a way out
and that Fulbright was asking, then answering the questions
for her. There was no doubt she had known who Kerchenko
was from the moment they left Vienna on Air Force One.
Two weeks before the assassination, Harvey had suggested
she should be taken out along with Kerchenko, having
pointed out that she was just as much a security risk. Both
Fulbright and McCone had been appalled at the very thought
and Johnson, on hearing the suggestion, had nearly rescinded
his executive order.
He had to give her one thing: she had impressed him with
her cool demeanour and the way she sidestepped any question
that might implicate her. She had explained her actions as those
consistent with a woman trying to ensure her captive husband
would not be harmed. She had told them that Kerchenko had
made it quite clear what would happen to the President if she
spoke with or contacted anyone. Harvey had wanted to ask if
sleeping with the enemy was part of her contract of silence, but
for once had refrained. It was Frank Harvey who remembered
the laughing couple as he had trained his gun on the car in
Dealey Plaza; Harvey who remembered the distraught woman
who had crawled onto the back of the car to elicit Clint Hill’s
help. No, Harvey was in no doubt that Jacqueline Kennedy had
strong feelings for Kerchenko. She may have lost her husband
but she was mourning the man buried in Arlington cemetery,
not the man under lock and key in Russia.
At the end of the meeting, Fulbright had got up and walked
over to the tall windows that looked out onto the beautifully
manicured lawn. The sun was setting and Washington and the
world was slowly coming to terms with the loss of the first
media icon. Crossing back to the young widow, he had
explained, in soft, unequivocal words, that if she ever

170
mentioned Kerchenko’s name again, the man sitting quietly in
the corner would be ordered to kill her.
Harvey stirred. He could not alter the past; all he could do
was make sure it was never allowed to taint the future.
***
"I’ve copied the disks," Capriotti said, handing the originals to
Daniels. They were riding towards the docks in the back of a
cab, Natasha in the front and chatting quietly with the driver.
"I don't suppose I have to tell you how explosive this
information is? Too many people have already died for them
to stop now. We’re all in danger."
"From our own government," Capriotti said angrily. "I
thought about posting copies to the Chronicle and Reuters but
we’d be putting too many other lives at risk. They’re not going
to allow any of this to become public."
"The Russians are no better and would gain nothing if
forced to admit they killed the real Kennedy."
"Assuming he is dead."
"Does it matter?" Natasha said, swivelling around in her
seat. "Everything’s so unbelievable that, even if you get into
print, it would be dismissed as just another conspiracy theory."
"She has a point, we might have the disks but there’s no
hard copy. They’d roll out umpteen experts and say the whole
thing was fabricated. Remember what happened when Stern
printed Hitler’s diaries? They had the hard copy and experts
who claimed they were authentic; the other side had more
experts who denounced the first lot as idiots and the diaries as
nothing more than clever forgeries. Who knows which side
was telling the truth."
Capriotti nodded. Daniels was probably right; the State
Department would wheel out a hundred experts to decry the
information on the disks.
"I’m sorry I got you into this," Natasha said. "If I’d known
what a bastard he was, I would never have…"
"We’re big boys," Daniels interrupted.

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 Capriotti looked over at his large friend. "Some more than
others." He turned back to Natasha. "You’re being too hard on
him. He probably wasn’t given a choice and you can’t arbitrarily
dismiss the feelings he once held for your mother. What
happened later was down to circumstance, rather than choice."
"He’s right," Daniels chipped in. "Imagine how Kerchenko
must have felt after Kuptsy was executed? If those last votes
had gone Nixon’s way, it would have been your father against
the wall and facing the firing squad. It’s too easy to second-
guess with hindsight."
Before she could answer, the driver pulled over to the curb
and they got out. Across the road was the huge expanse of
Leningrad docks. The wind was cold and raw and the three of
them stood shivering as the driver turned the car around and
quickly drove away into the blackness of the night.
Natasha had called Dostoyevsky several hours earlier and the
shipping importer had confirmed that he had made all the
arrangements and they should come to his office at seven thirty,
so that he could introduce them to the freighter’s captain. It was
now seven forty-five and they were standing outside the huge
metal gates dominating the dock’s entrance. There was a small
wooden gatehouse to the left and inside an old man, puffing
earnestly on a home-made clay pipe. He recognised Natasha and
casually waved them through. He may have been a security
guard but it was too cold to stand outside and argue about
whether or not she should be entering the complex after dark.
Once through the gate, they walked past run-down
warehouses towards the small concrete and wood block that
housed Dostoyevsky’s importing company. The dark shadows
from giant dockside cranes hung silently above them. Rusting
freighters were tied up along the quays, their deck lights the
only source of illumination. Natasha pointed to a small car
sitting outside one of the buildings. They looked up and saw
a dim glow reflecting from one of the first floor offices.
"I’m not sure about this, it doesn’t feel right. There could be
cops waiting for us in there."

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 "What other choices do we have?" Capriotti whispered over
his shoulder. As they reached the corner of the building he
turned, took Sergei’s gun out of his coat pocket and gave it to
Daniels. "You wait out here. If it is a trap then at least one of
us will get away with the disks. I’ll go up with Natasha." The
older man started to object but Capriotti waved him down. "If
it looks okay, I’ll give you a call. If you haven’t heard from us
in five minutes then you’re on your own."
Daniels nodded, realising the sense in what Capriotti was
suggesting. He checked the safety catch and then put the gun
in his pocket. "Don't leave it too long," he muttered. "Betty
wouldn’t like her cuddly teddy bear with brass balls!"
Capriotti picked up the suitcase and he and Natasha
stepped around to the front of the building, through the main
door and up a set of concrete steps that led to the first floor.
At the top was a corridor and at the far end the light from
Dostoyevsky’s office. The corridor was cold and unlit,
Capriotti’s footsteps echoing faintly as he led Natasha down
the hall towards the end office. Reaching it, he hesitated and
then slowly pushed the door further open.
He could see Dostoyevsky sitting in the chair behind the
desk. His eyes were open and staring, a dull red hole in the
centre of his forehead, the back of the chair covered in
congealed brain matter. Capriotti’s blood suddenly ran cold.
"Move it," he shouted, swivelling around and trying to push a
startled Natasha back down the hall. As she turned, a short
man stepped out from an office at the other end of the
corridor, a gun in his hand, a cruel grin stretched across a
pinched, pockmarked face.
"Miss Kerchenko and her American friend," he sneered,
through crooked, yellow stained teeth. "I was beginning to
wonder if you would ever turn up."
Natasha instinctively shrunk back against Capriotti,
recognising Gouzenko as the same man who had driven her
back to the small apartment. They stood transfixed as the
Russian walked unhurriedly down the corridor and then

173
gesticulated with the gun towards the end office and
Dostoyevsky’s body. Capriotti pulled Natasha protectively
behind him as they edged back into the office. She gasped at
the gruesome sight staring out from the chair, the dead man’s
skin tone already waxen and tight, the colour bluish white, the
lips slightly parted as if caught in one last unheard cry for help,
his fists rigidly clenched and still resting on the desktop.
"I don't suppose the Major will be ordering more cars from
your old boss," Gouzenko laughed, his voice high pitched and
nasal. "Tell your boyfriend to place his hands above his head."
Natasha translated and Capriotti did as he was told.
Moving forward, Gouzenko spun the American round,
pushed him over the desk and patted him down, searching for
a weapon. Capriotti found it hard not to gag, his face inches
away from the unseeing staring gaze of the corpse. Finally
satisfied, he shoved Capriotti towards the window and
searched Natasha with the same rough efficiency. "Against the
wall, both of you," he snarled again, waving the gun
menacingly at Capriotti. They moved back until they were
both standing in front of the window, Gouzenko’s confident
smile returning and with it a sudden look of intense pleasure.
He leered at Natasha, the look making her skin crawl.
"Your boyfriend shot Alexis, it seems only fair that I should
return the favour." Capriotti’s eyes opened wide with fear as
the short man raised the gun and pointed it directly at the
American’s head.
"Pull that trigger, asshole, and I’ll splatter your sorry
looking face across the room." Daniels was behind the
Russian, the barrel of Sergei’s gun pressed firmly into the base
of his skull. Gouzenko froze, the same fear that had moments
earlier been in Capriotti’s eyes now transferred to his own.
"Drop it." Daniels pulled back the automatic’s hammer. Ever
so slowly, Gouzenko leaned forward and placed his gun on the
front edge of the desk, Capriotti beginning to breathe again as
Daniels forced the short man into the middle of the room, the
gun still trained at his head.

174
 "Get him to sit down against the wall," Daniels said to
Natasha, his eyes never leaving the diminutive Russian. She
translated and then watched as Gouzenko slithered down the
wall onto the carpeted floor.
A relieved Capriotti picked the man’s gun off the desk. "I
don’t suppose I need to tell you you’re a sight for sore eyes," he
said, his voice trembling with emotion and spent adrenaline.
"I’m surprised our friend didn’t hear me coming down the
corridor. My teeth were chattering so badly I almost had to hold
my tongue." Daniels looked towards the chair and the waxen
figure of Dostoyevsky. "Your erstwhile boss?" he asked Natasha.
She nodded. "I guess we can wave goodbye to the boat ride?"
"Is this the one who trashed your apartment?" Capriotti
was pointing the gun in the direction of the glowering
Gouzenko. She nodded again. "Ask him who set us up?"
She spoke quickly in Russian but Gouzenko remained
silent, his sullen eyes fixed on the wall above her head. "No
matter," Capriotti said. "You two go downstairs, I’ll kill him."
"Wait," the man squatting against the wall suddenly
shrieked.
"Amazing," Daniels snorted, "the sorry looking asshole
suddenly understands English. Empty your pockets."
Gouzenko did as he was told, Daniels moving forward and
carefully picking the wallet off the carpet. He opened it,
whistling aloud as he withdrew the man’s identity card. "Well,
well; what do we have here? Konstantin Gouzenko, sorry,
Captain Gouzenko of the NKVD, no less."
Capriotti shoved the gun into the cowering man's face.
"Who sent you? Orlanov?"
The man on the floor hesitated and then nodded.
"What now? We can’t stay here and we certainly can’t leave
a witness."
Capriotti suddenly looked very tired, the onset of post-
adrenaline collapse beginning to overwhelm his thought
process. "We take the car and make for the border. I don’t see
that we have any other choice."

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 "And the good Captain?"
Capriotti pondered the question for several seconds and
then, telling Daniels to keep Gouzenko covered, retreated
down the hall and began checking the other offices. Several
minutes passed before he returned with the ripped flex from a
couple of office phones. Hauling the NKVD man onto his
feet, he told him to strip, the gun barrel thrust roughly under
his larynx and instantly nullifying any objection Gouzenko
might have had. They watched as the frightened agent slowly
removed his jacket, shirt, vest and finally his trousers.
Capriotti tightly wound the flex around Gouzenko’s bare
wrists, grunting with satisfaction as the cord bit cruelly into
the shivering man’s skin. Forcing him back down to the floor,
he tied the ankles together, connected a length of flex between
his hands and feet and again pulled it tight. Satisfied with his
handiwork, he unceremoniously dragged the prostrate figure
over to the door, raised him up into a kneeling position,
attached a length of flex around the handle and wound the
other end around Gouzenko’s neck, allowing him just enough
movement to breathe.
"Looks like you’ve seen this done before?" Daniels said,
pocketing the man’s identity card, wallet and the recently
departed Dostoyevsky’s car keys.
"Texas State Rodeo, nineteen sixty-two," Capriotti replied,
ripping the phone line out of the wall socket and replacing his
gloves. Taking the gun out of his coat pocket, he dropped it
onto the desk and then pulled out a dirty handkerchief. "Open
wide," he snarled, stuffing the cloth into the shaken man’s
mouth. Daniels was right; Gouzenko looked like a scared steer
trussed up and ready for branding. "Come on, the quicker we
get on the road, the quicker we’ll reach the border."
"Wait." Natasha moved across to the window, unlocked the
latch and pulled the frame up as far as it would go. A cold
draught of air immediately attacked the room. "Let’s see how
you enjoy it," she said in guttural Russian.
The car started first time. "How do we get to the border

176
from here?" Daniels asked Natasha as they crawled towards the
main gates.
"We don’t," Capriotti answered firmly. "We’re taking a train
back to Moscow."
"But…"
"I know what I said in there. Let’s hope Captain Marvel
understands English as well as you do!"
***
Orlanov called the Langley number at midnight, Moscow
time. Fulbright was sitting in his office with James Webster.
They had spent most of the previous night and all of the day
discussing their options.
"Well?"
"We agree to your terms," Fulbright replied and then listened
as Orlanov gave him the account number and name of the
Caymans' Bank where he wanted the hundred million deposited.
"I expect the money to be transferred by nine o’clock
tomorrow morning, my time."
"There’s something else," Fulbright said, his voice hesitant.
"Two days ago, we learned that you had accessed the Stasi
database." There was a pause. "We’ve dispatched a man to
retrieve the files and…"
"Ensure my silence?"
"Your call last night changed the game plan but,
unfortunately, we’ve not yet been able to contact our man and
inform him of our new business arrangement."
"What name’s he travelling under?" Fulbright gave him
Harvey’s cover name along with a number of other details.
"I’m telling you this to show our good faith."
"You’d better hope I’m better than your agent," Orlanov
spat. "If not, then Saddam will hold the one asset you won’t be
able to hit with a cruise missile." The phone went dead.
"How good is Harvey?" Webster asked his Deputy
Director.
"Too damn good."

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Saturday, December 1st

T hey left Dostoyevsky’s car at the St Petersburg Hotel in

the centre of Leningrad and caught a cab to the train
station. Natasha had called ahead from the foyer of the hotel
and reserved three seats. The station was huge and functional,
a testament to the once grandiose plans of the new communist
regime. Capriotti and Daniels were sitting in the crowded
platform café, their eyes watchful as Natasha queued at the
ticket booth. They were running out of money and would
have to find an alternative source sooner rather than later.
Daniels had another plate of black sausage in front of him,
Capriotti a coffee. "Good move," he said, placing his utensils
on the dirty wooden table.
"What?" Capriotti muttered, his attention drawn away
from the bustle of the concourse and back to his complaining
friend.
"Avoiding the sausage. This makes the Intourist look
good."
Capriotti smiled but his mind was not overly concerned
with Daniels’ food intake. He knew the OMON would
eventually find the importer’s body and, with any luck,
Gouzenko still firmly attached to the door. He had purposely
left the man’s gun on the desk in the hope they made the
connection between dead body, weapon and Gouzenko, fairly
certain that they would be able to check the serial number and
confirm it belonged to the NKVD officer.
His only problem was the fact the man was trussed up and
even the OMON would work out that someone else must have
been there. He hoped it would not matter, because, and whatever
happened, Captain Gouzenko of the NKVD would still have a
lot of explaining to do. He watched Natasha as she strolled back
through the crowd towards the cafe, her natural grace and good
looks turning a number of appreciative male heads.

178
 "Got them," she smiled, sitting down and placing the three
tickets on the table. "We should arrive at Leningradskiy
vokzali mid-morning."
"Where?" Daniels asked, still struggling with the sausage.
"Leningrad Station; Moscow has eight main train stations,
I guess they ran out of names."
"Are there public phones around here?" Capriotti asked.
She nodded, pointing to the far side of the concourse. "Could
we call the OMON’s Moscow office from here?"
"I suppose so, why?"
"I’d like to keep Gouzenko out of circulation for as long as
possible."
"Clever," Daniels said, finally giving up on his food and
pushing the plate across the table. "Send the cops hotfooting
it down here whilst the good guys are back up in Moscow?"
"Something like that. It might give us a few extra days."
Natasha looked confused. "For what?
"To find Kennedy," Capriotti replied, a cold determination
in his voice.
***
Saddam Hussein was in a surprisingly jubilant mood. Tariq
Aziz was glad, because the news from New York and the
Security Council looked anything but good. The Americans
had convinced the Russians that unless Iraq pulled out of
Kuwait by the middle of January, the coalition forces should
go to war. The Russians had tried to change their minds but
both Britain and France had backed Bush and the hawks in
his administration. It still had to be ratified by the full session
but it now looked certain that Resolution 678 would be
approved.
Aziz was sitting in the palatial meeting room as Abbas
again went over his plans for stopping the coalition forces at
the Saudi border. Tariq Aziz wondered who was fooling
whom. He might not be a military commander but he knew
the Iraqi army would be no match for cruise missiles, laser

179
guided bombs, Apache gunships and the billions of dollars'
worth of sophisticated hardware now being amassed across
the border.
The Iraqi President was placing much faith in his airforce,
Abbas having already admitted in private and well away from
Saddam's hearing that their Russian-made MIGs were no
match for the American F117A Stealth fighter-bombers and
their ability to avoid Iraqi radar. The Saudis were already
calling them shabahs, or ghosts. The MIGs might be able to
take on the Iranians but the fighters on the American carrier
force, already stationed in the Gulf, and the B52s flying from
bases in Turkey and Britain would crush them without the
need for one GI to cross the border.
Aziz listened for another hour, becoming more and more
depressed as the futility of what they were about to embark
upon was outlined in detail. Saddam seemed oblivious to the
facts and ranted about the rain of fear his SCUD missiles
would create and how they would drag the Israelis into the
conflict. Finally it was over and Saddam dismissed his
Generals and the other aides sitting around the table. He told
Aziz to stay, the dapper Foreign Minister wondering what new
madness was about to be unleashed and what part he would be
asked to play. The large doors closed and Aziz found himself
alone with Saddam and Izzat Ibrahim.
"Tariq." Saddam's voice was soft and beguiling. "I want you
to look at what Izzat received and then give us your valued
comments."
Ibrahim handed Aziz a decoded copy of the message Al-
Sawabi had sent from Moscow. He read it and then, just to
make sure, read it again.
"Well?" Saddam asked, already becoming annoyed by the
lack of response from his Foreign Minister.
"If it’s true," Aziz said carefully, "it might give us leverage
over the Americans."
"Our source in Moscow has seen more than this," Ibrahim
said, pointing at the paper in Aziz’s hand. "He tells us that the

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KGB have a five-hundred-page file, which documents every
part of the Russian operation."
"May I ask who our source is?"
"Colonel Al-Sawabi," Saddam replied, as Aziz looked back
down at the paper. "He has already met with the Russians and
we’ve agreed to their terms."
Tariq Aziz knew that if Al-Sawabi was wrong then he was
putting more than his own life at risk. The man at the end of
the table would wipe out his family, his family’s family and
anyone stupid enough to have once claimed to know the
unfortunate Al-Sawabi. He also knew that the Moscow
Intelligence head would have realised this and would not have
sent the coded message unless he was very, very sure of his
information.
"Al-Sawabi’s a loyal man," Aziz said, making sure he used
the word loyal and not good. If Al-Sawabi failed, Saddam
would remember that Aziz had backed him. ‘Loyal’ was
nondescript and would be readily forgotten, or so the Foreign
Minister now hoped. "It’s a lot of money; money we could use
to protect our country."
"One hundred million to force the Americans to withdraw
from the Middle East," Saddam whispered, his voice cold and
calculating. "We hold on to Kuwait, keep the oilfields that we
need to survive and ensure the Americans can never again
interfere in this region. It’s perfect."
"Almost too perfect," Aziz said, immediately wishing he
had not spoken out aloud.
Ibrahim leant over and retrieved the paper from Aziz’s grip
"What have we got to lose? If this is true, the Americans will
be forced to retreat. If not, they will still be crushed as they
cross our border."
Aziz smiled, suddenly realising that Izzat Ibrahim’s life was
just as much on the line as Al-Sawabi. Saddam’s tolerance of
failure was well known. "When will we have the information?"
"Al-Sawabi has another meeting tonight."
"I intend to make a humanitarian gesture," Saddam

181
suddenly gushed. "I will go on CNN and announce to the
world that Iraq does not wage war against innocent civilians
and that we intend to release the aircraft passengers. By then,
we should have the Kerchenko file and the Americans can save
face by telling the world they accept that Kuwait belongs to
the Iraqi people. The imperialist's army will be forced to bow
to the will of Iraq."
Aziz listened for another thirty minutes as Saddam ranted
on about how he would next annex Saudi Arabia, followed by
the United Emirates, the Foreign Minister nodding in rapt
agreement, as he always did. The meeting finally broke up, a
relieved Tariq Aziz stepping back into the sun and his waiting
car. As he drove through the busy streets of Baghdad past the
thousands of hungry beggars, he wondered if Saddam really
believed that he had never waged war against innocent
civilians.

182
Sunday, December 2nd

T hey had a carriage all to themselves. Capriotti had been

surprised until Natasha reminded him that, even in these
more enlightened times, the thought of travel between major
cities was daunting, with most Russians still living and dying
within several miles of their place of birth. Over the years,
there had been a steady migration to the cities, but a lack of
jobs, and the continuous presence of the OMON, KGB and
NKVD had not been conducive to regular travel. In addition,
the need for an internal passport - and the problems of gaining
one - ensured that most people stayed at home, or at least in
the village or collective where they were born.
The carriages were of wooden construction and decades
old, the ventilation either nonexistent or roasting hot. At that
moment, it was nonexistent, the carriage temperature
bordering on unbearable and, had Capriotti been so inclined,
he could have scraped ice off the inside of the window. Daniels
was stretched out on the facing seat, his breath hanging above
his gargantuan, snoring body like a personal storm cloud.
Natasha had draped her coat across the older man’s prostrate
frame and placed a woollen cap on his head to protect his cold
ears. Capriotti wished he had a camera.
They were lying together on the opposite bench seat, his
coat wrapped tightly around them both. "Do you really think
you’ll find him?" she asked, nuzzling his ear lobe with her lips.
"Who knows, it’s nearly thirty years since Vienna and, if
still alive, he’d be over seventy by now."
"Seventy-three to be exact," Daniels said, groaning as he
turned over. "He was born on May twenty-ninth, nineteen
seventeen. I remember because my wife shares the same
birthday, although she’s ten years younger and a damn sight
better looking."

183
 "Do you always snore when awake?"
"Sinus problems," he said sheepishly. "It’s troubled Betty
since before we married."
"Really?" Capriotti queried and then wondered aloud if
there had been such a thing as pre-marital sex in Daniels’ era.
"My mother warned her, if you must know," Daniels
replied, intent on protecting his wife’s slandered integrity.
"Although I’ve noted recently that the younger generation have
no such qualms." He struggled into an upright position and
removed the woollen hat from his head. "What’s the time?"
Capriotti checked his watch. "Five thirty. We should arrive
in Moscow around ten."
"If I make it," Daniels groaned again. "Someone should
impress upon the guard the need for heating in this
refrigerated coffin." He stretched and tried to get to his feet,
the motion of the carriage forcing him to grab hold of the
leather strap above his head. "I’m going for a walk, does
anyone want something in the unlikely event I come across a
buffet car?" The other two shook their heads as Daniels pulled
back the carriage door and almost fell out into the corridor.
"I’m too old for this," he muttered, pulling the door closed
and clinging to the side of the corridor as he moved towards
the rear of the train.
"Perhaps he's dead."
"Who?" Capriotti queried, his hand stroking her hair.
"The file said he had Addison's disease."
"It maybe wasn’t curable in the fifties but, with the
introduction of steroids, Addison’s has slowly disappeared as a
life-threatening disease. Russian doctors in particular have
turned the use of steroids into a science; he probably couldn’t
have chosen a better place to be sick."
"You really think he’s alive?"
"Seventy-three isn’t that old and I can’t see the point in
killing him. If the secret had come out, there would have been
an international outcry, particularly if they later admitted he’d
been executed."

184
 "Why would they?" she asked. "They could simply say he
died from natural causes."
"Maybe, but we’d ask for the body to be returned and, with
the recent advances in forensic science, they’d probably be able to
pinpoint the cause of death." He paused, a thoughtful look in his
eyes. He well remembered the obscene haste to swear in Lyndon
B. Johnson and the fact it took place on the same plane carrying
the late President’s body and his First Lady to the comparative
safety of Washington. "No, I'm sure they would have kept him
alive, at least whilst Kerchenko was in the White House".
Natasha snuggled closer. "There's no use worrying about it."
His thought process rumbled on, his mind working to the
steady clickety-clack from the train's wheels and reminding
him of his teens and the long journey south from New York.
He thought back to the early hours of the morning and the
way she had held him close and kissed the tears off his eyelids.
"About last night, I'm sorry if ..."
She opened her eyes and put a finger to his lips "Don’t be,
it made me feel very special."
"Not embarrassed?"
"You lost your daughter, John. If you can’t cry over her---."
Before she could continue, the door slid back and Daniels
flopped wearily onto the seat. "No buffet car, broken toilets
and the guard lying drunk in the baggage car. All in all, a
perfect early morning stroll. How could we ever have thought
communism was a threat?"
Natasha’s eyes suddenly flashed. "Because Russia spends
nearly forty percent of her GNP on the military. Trust me,
neither you nor the West will ever know how big a threat it
once was."
***
Colonel Al-Sawabi had briefed the Iraqi Ambassador on the
situation, much to the older man’s consternation. The idea
seemed absurd and the last thing he wanted was to be
associated with the transfer of one hundred million dollars and

185
the wrath of Saddam if the information was false. 'Death by
association' was a phrase commonly used in Iraq.
Ambassador Ubedidi was sitting at his breakfast table,
sipping absently at a glass of concentrated orange juice, a copy
of Izvestiya propped in front of him, his mind elsewhere. Aziz
had called earlier and confirmed that much was resting on Al-
Sawabi’s shoulders and it might be wise if he distanced himself
from the disks. The Iraqi Foreign Minister had spoken very
judiciously but Ubedidi was well aware of the warning he was
being given by his old friend.
There was a knock on his door. Ubedidi folded his paper,
placed it over the buff folder lying in front of him and called
out. Al-Sawabi entered, bowed and crossed the deep-pile
carpeted floor.
The Ambassador pointed towards the empty chair at the
other end of the table. "Tell me more about this Dmitri
Orlanov."
"He’s a good friend of Iraq," Al-Sawabi replied, pulling out
the chair and sitting down. "He helped arrange the necessary
chemical shipments during the Iran conflict."
"Be more specific," Ubedidi urged, spreading some jam on
a slice of cold toast. "Why was he ousted from the KGB?"
"I believe he may have disagreed with the new policies and
the changes in the Politburo."
"Gorbachev?"
"He spoke his mind and paid the penalty but is now a
respected businessman with growing interests around the city."
"The Red Mafia?"
"I’m not sure," Al-Sawabi answered hesitantly, suddenly
uncomfortable with the direct line of questioning.
"Really? I hear that your ex-KGB Major is now one of
Moscow’s top Mafia bosses and owns several strip clubs, a
construction company and uses disgruntled NKVD officers to
carry out his less savoury activities."
"I don't see what difference it makes." Al-Sawabi's attempt
at defiance was falling on deaf ears. "All we want is the file;

186
does it really matter what he is or does, as long as we get the
information?"
"It might give us a clue to just how reliable that
information is. I trust you’ve already considered what would
happen if Ibrahim transfers one hundred million dollars and
the files are not forthcoming?"
"Of course."
The Ambassador leaned forward and stared directly into
the Intelligence Colonel’s eyes. "Perhaps I should explain
about Khatib’s little house of horrors." Al-Sawabi shifted
uneasily in his seat, realising that he was about to sit through
another of Ubedidi's fatherly lectures.
"Beneath his nice modern office in Kindi Street is a two
storey basement. The bottom floor is where he performs his
interrogations. I use the word ‘interrogation’, but he’d be lost
without the generator that sends power to the copper leads he
attaches to those body parts you’d rather keep to yourself.
Along the wall is a set of butcher knives, which are also used
to good effect. In the corner is a solution of hydrochloric acid
with which he bathes open wounds and, in his less humorous
moments, injects into the body via a syringe. You don’t need
me to explain what happens to the heart when the acid begins
eating away at the valves." Ubedidi paused, allowing the
information to sink in. Al-Sawabi’s face was deathly white.
"On the floor above are the holding cells where his victims
wait for their turn. He normally rounds up whole families and
begins with the children. The father’s next and, before he dies,
the mother is offered the chance to save his life. If she knows
anything, she talks; more times than not they are innocent and
there is nothing to tell. Not that it matters; once inside and
underground, there is only one way you leave Kindi Street."
"I have complete faith in Orlanov," Al-Sawabi blustered,
his tone betraying the confident words.
"I hope so, for your sake, Colonel. I pulled your personal
file this morning; you’re single, a career officer with no wife or
children."

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 "So?"
Ubedidi picked the buff folder off the table and opened it.
"Colonel Rashid Al-Sawabi, thirty-five, eldest of six. Have you
any nephews or nieces?
"Too many to count." The younger man suddenly smiled.
"If you fail to deliver the file you’ll have condemned all of
them to Khatib’s hell hole."
An hour later Colonel Al-Sawabi was sitting alone at his
desk, the Ambassador’s chilling words still ringing in his ears.
He opened the drawer and pulled out his small Beretta,
checked the clip and then stuck the gun into the shoulder
holster. The Russian would deliver; he would make sure of
that.
***
Orlanov rolled off Karina and pulled the quilt up over their
naked bodies. She snuggled close, listening to his breathing,
her hand moving across his chest and tugging gently at the
greying hairs. "What’s wrong?" she asked, savouring the
pungent body smell and the feel of his skin.
"Nothing’s wrong; I’m not in the mood, that’s all."
She continued to play with his chest, twisting the small
hairs around her fingers. "Is it me?" she asked, raising herself
up on one elbow and looking at his face. He smiled wryly,
wondering why women always blamed themselves for a man’s
failure to perform.
"I’ve a lot on my mind right now."
"Like the Kerchenko woman?"
He growled, threw back the covers and stamped across the
floor to the shower room. The water was hot and helped blow
away the last vestiges of sleep. Maybe Karina was right,
Natasha had rejected him and, worse still, she appeared to
have rejected him for an American. He rinsed the soap off his
body and then washed his hair. Karina was just as pretty, just
as firm and a damn sight more willing to perform. Maybe that
was it; he knew he could have Karina when, how and where he

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wanted. He had wanted Natasha and she had rejected him. He
stepped out of the shower and dried himself, angrily throwing
the towel at the basket in the corner before stomping back into
the bedroom. Karina was propped up on the pillows, a
cigarette in one hand, a magazine in the other.
As he started to dress, the phone rang. Karina leaned over
the bed, picked up the receiver, listened for several seconds and
then placed her hand over the mouthpiece. "It’s a Captain
Kirov from Leningrad."
"Ask him what he wants."
"It’s got something to do with your psychotic midget."
She dropped the phone onto the quilt and turned over.
Tucking in his shirt, he picked the phone off the bed, listening
as Kirov informed him of the situation and then suggesting
what it might take to make the problem go away. He snapped
his fingers at Karina, watching impatiently as she slowly
opened the bedside cabinet and pulled out a note pad and
pencil. Kirov spelled out his name, home address and his
needs before putting the NKVD officer on the phone.
Gouzenko sounded terrible as he falteringly gave an abridged
and sanitised version of what had transpired over the past
twenty-four hours.
Kirov eventually came back on the line and Orlanov told
him to put Gouzenko on the next flight to Moscow, the
policeman suggesting it might be wiser if he was taken to
hospital, since it was quite obvious the man was suffering from
the effects of hypothermia. Orlanov quietly explained that it
was either the plane and an unmarked package or the hospital
and nothing. Kirov confirmed that Gouzenko would be on the
first flight to Moscow. Orlanov thanked him and hung up.
He finished dressing and then went downstairs to the
kitchen, Karina wandering down several minutes later and
brewing a pot of coffee before joining him at the table. "More
problems?" she asked, handing him a steaming mug.
"When has Gouzenko ever been anything else?" he
muttered, clumsily trying to fix his cufflinks, relieved when

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she took hold of his double cuffs and deftly threaded the gold
links through the small holes. "Natasha and the American
have disappeared. Gouzenko reckons they’re making for the
border." He paused. "Have we got a map around here?"
Karina shook her head sadly. "What is it about her?"
"It’s not about her any more," he snapped, beginning to feel
the anger well up inside him. "Gouzenko shot and killed an
OMON officer and it now appears he might have had
something that belonged to me. The problem is, it hasn’t
turned up and it’s beginning to look like the girl could have
it."
"Is it important?"
He looked at her and, for the first time, she saw something
unusual in his eyes. He was genuinely worried.
***
"Where to?" Daniels asked, as they walked along the cold
platform. The train had been two hours late, the guard
eventually explaining that the hold up was caused by ice on
the rails, Daniels suggesting vodka on the brain as a more
viable explanation.
Capriotti was holding Natasha's hand and moving slowly
towards the exit. He looked over his shoulder at the struggling
Daniels "We’re going to need some more money."
The station was crowded and they were jostled and pushed
as they crossed the concourse and made for the way out. The
weather had closed in, the low hanging clouds dark and
foreboding, the traffic down to a crawl, headlights already on
and trying to pierce the growing gloom of the late morning.
"It’s going to snow."
"It’s been snowing on and off since we arrived last week,"
Daniels sniffed.
"No, really snow," she said. "Moscow usually gets a heavy
fall at the beginning of December. It can be as much as four
or five feet in a single day."
The taxi queue wound along the street; tired looking

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business types stamping their feet and blowing on cold hands.
"Can we risk Reuters?"
Daniels considered the question for several seconds.
"There’s a hotel around the corner from the office. Why don't
we make for it and I’ll call in from there? Jack Blanchard’s over
from London, I’m sure he can tell us whether or not they’ve
had a visit from the OMON."
"We might be quicker on the Metro," Natasha suggested,
shivering as the first flurries of snow began to fall. Capriotti
again looked along the length of the taxi queue before turning
towards Daniels who gave a grudging nod of his head. They
walked back onto the concourse, waited for Natasha to buy
the tickets and then followed the signs for the Metro. As they
rode the escalator down to the underground trains, Daniels
looked at the passing coloured maps on the wall and asked
which line would take them west.
"Zamoskvoretskaya," Natasha replied and then, seeing the
blank look on the American’s face, "The Green Line."
The trains ran every five or six minutes and they were soon
sitting in a carriage and rumbling west, a hundred feet below
the bleak cold of another wintry Moscow day. Getting off at
Plavelestkaya, they rode the escalator to the top, the snow now
falling heavily, the roads and sidewalks already hidden by a
powdery white covering. Traffic everywhere had slowed to a
crawl and Capriotti pulled up his coat collar and took a firmer
grip on the suitcase handle as they slid across the road and
made for the hotel at the end of the long street. A uniformed
doorman held the door for them as they struggled out of the
weather and into the comparative warmth of the modern
looking foyer. Natasha ordered coffee whilst Daniels and
Capriotti went across to a bank of public telephones on the far
wall and called the Reuters’ office.
The coffee had already arrived by the time they returned to
the table, Daniels reciting what Blanchard had told him and
in particular how the whole office had been turned upside
down by a marauding visit from the OMON. Greg Stevens,

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the Reuters’ Moscow head, had been pulled down to police
headquarters spending the best part of a day trying to explain
why a cop had ended up dead on his staff-house kitchen table.
Jack had found the raid amusing but Daniels knew the
Moscow man was not the type to see the funny side in
anything, particularly when he might be implicated.
Blanchard had agreed to come over the road to the hotel.
"You weren’t wrong about the weather," Capriotti said,
staring through the large plate glass window. The snow was
now thick and instead of drifting in flurries was making a
concerted effort to reach the ground as quickly as possible.
They had finished their pot of coffee and were in the
middle of ordering a second when Jack Blanchard arrived.
Daniels called him over, introduced Capriotti and Natasha
and then went over the events of the last few days without
mentioning either the computer disks or Kennedy.
"Stevens is shitting purple coloured bricks," Blanchard said
in his very English accent. "He’s already been on to
Washington. You’re bloody lucky he doesn’t know who was in
the house because he'd have given up your name in a
heartbeat."
Daniels scowled in disgust. "That man gives a whole new
meaning to the word asshole."
"He still blames you for scuppering the Paris posting."
"It’ll teach him not to read private memos, and anyway, we
both know that Mark Samuels was the obvious choice."
"That’s not how the delectable Marcie sees it." Blanchard
laughed.
Capriotti handed him a cup of coffee and then looked at
Daniels. "What did you put in the memo?"
"Nothing really," Daniels smirked, quite obviously
enjoying the notoriety the incident had engendered.
"Michelson telexed and asked who I’d recommend for the
Paris post. There were three candidates: Greg, Mark Samuels
and another jerk-off called Pete Brooks. I simply encapsulated
my reply in a one-line memo."

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 "And how! " Blanchard interrupted. "Dan here writes that
Brooks was so far up Michelson’s ass, he could almost reach
Greg’s ankles."
"Smooth," Capriotti chuckled.
"Greg was shunted over to Moscow and still blames Dan."
"I did the man a favour. Nothing big has happened in Paris
since sixty-seven and the student riots."
"Marcie didn’t see it that way, the poor bloke's been cut off
ever since she discovered Gucci doesn’t have a branch in
Moscow."
"He should thank me for that too," Daniels said with
genuine feeling. "It would take a surgeon to make that
vindictive bitch look good, never mind a couturier."
"Did you manage to get hold of any funds?" Capriotti
asked, already tiring of the customary journalistic banter.
"I sweet talked Andrea into raiding the petty cash." He
pulled a bundle of notes from his pocket. "There’s almost a
grand in dollars and another three or four hundred in rubles.
If you want, I’ll see if I can persuade Greg to authorise an
advance?"
"Fat chance, he’d rather turn us over to the OMON than
keep paying my expenses."
"That’s closer to the truth than you might think. He pulled
us all in yesterday and asked if anyone knew what you were up
to. I’ll see if he'll advance me and then pass it on. Are you
staying here?"
"We’re not sure yet," Capriotti said cautiously.
"You should probably give Michelson a call," the tall
Englishman suggested to his colleague. "You know how he
likes to be kept in the loop."
Daniels nodded. "Do you know if the cops have any ideas
on the house and who was in it?"
"I don't think so. I’m sure they’ll have taken prints and
things but, and this is coming from Greg, they seem to reckon
it was a professional hit." Blanchard rose and shook both
Natasha and Capriotti’s hands. "If you need anything else, call

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me at the house. I’m going to Kiev in the next day or so to
cover some strike that’s brewing but I’ll see if I can get my
hands on an advance before flying out." He shook Daniels
roughly by his shoulders and told him to take care.
"Thanks, Jack, I owe you one," Daniels called out as his
friend walked towards the door.
Capriotti stared through the window as Blanchard slid back
across the snow-covered road. "Nice guy, can we trust him?"
"I should hope so, his wife’s my goddaughter."
***
Frank Harvey was also sliding through the falling snow.
Somewhat ironically, he had spent the morning posing as an
East German journalist, experience having taught him you
track down a local reporter and buy him a few drinks if you
want to find out about the local crime boss. In this respect,
Moscow was no different than Chicago, Washington or
London except that the currency used was vodka rather than
Budweiser, Millers or tepid brown beer.
Harvey was now standing outside Dmitri Orlanov’s
warehouse office, the reporter in question having told him
about the three night clubs, the offices above, as well as the
construction company doing most of the work for the city’s
vaunted rejuvenation programme. The young man worked on
the Moskovskiy Kamsamalets, a city paper hated by corrupt
politicians and the far right because of its uncompromising
and relentless investigative journalism. He had also hinted that
Orlanov was probably making substantial payoffs to Moscow’s
leading citizen. The ex-KGB Major would have laughed at the
suggestion. The Mayor was a closet paedophile and Orlanov
not only supplied the young boys he eagerly craved but also
had the sickening photographs to prove his depravity. The
lucrative building contracts were the Mayor’s way of ensuring
a continuing supply of young flesh and avoiding a one-way
trip to the local jail.
Harvey watched as Orlanov left his office, noting the

194
Mercedes, the licence number and the impressive size of the
driver. Ten minutes later, he was inside the club and drinking
at the bar with the lunchtime locals. He chatted amiably in
Russian, explaining to the barman that he had just arrived
from Latvia and was looking for a labouring job. The man
suggested he should speak with the boss, Harvey casually
asking when the best time would be to meet him. The barman
advised early evening. Still smiling, Harvey thanked him and
stepped back out into the snow; all he needed now was a
weapon.
***
Natasha was sitting silently in the corner of the hotel foyer as
the Americans continued to bait each other, the argument
having been building for the past half an hour.
"One of us has to make sure the disks get out of here,"
Capriotti was saying again.
Daniels was becoming more agitated by the minute and no
longer bothering to keep the growing annoyance from
creeping into his voice. "Fine, you stick them in the post then;
I didn’t tag along this far so you could stick me on a plane and
send me running home to Betty and the grandkids."
"I’m not, I just think it’s better if I go it alone from here."
"What about Natasha? Are you going to send her packing
as well?"
"She lives here."
"That’s bullshit, and you know it," Daniels exploded, his
eyes blazing. "You want Kennedy all to yourself."
"Keep your voice down, for Christ’s sake." He looked over
at Natasha, his eyes asking her for support.
"I'm sorry, John, I think Dan’s right, you can’t thank him
for saving our lives and then ask him to walk away."
"You’re stuck with me until we find Kennedy," Daniels said,
smiling his thanks over at the young girl.
"Jesus," Capriotti swore. "You two are like a Goddamn
double act. We’ve been shot at, Natasha nearly freezes to death

195
and the cops are on our back. Maybe you haven’t noticed but
it’s not a game anymore? Orlanov’s playing for keeps and I
surely don't have to remind you who set Gouzenko on us, or
what happened to Sergei and Natasha’s boss? Neither one of
them will be dusting themselves off at the end of the reel.
Dead is for keeps in this game."
All three sat in silence, contemplating Capriotti’s words.
Natasha finally got up and excused herself, the two men
watching as she asked for directions to the lady’s room. Once
she was out of sight, Capriotti rounded on Daniels.
"If you had waited outside Dostoyevskys for another thirty
seconds, I’d be dead now. Just as dead as I’d have been if the
little bastard had found me inside Natasha’s apartment. We’ve
been lucky so far. Sergei was a trained cop and look how lucky
he was."
"I reckon we should try mental institutions first."
"What?"
"That’s where our side would have probably put
Kerchenko; a private place in upstate New York, maybe the
Hamptons."
"Look, you daft old fool, I don't want you getting hurt or,
worse still, killed."
"It’s not top of my shopping list either," Daniels replied.
"I’m not going, and that’s it."
"Goddamnit. Why do you have to be such a stubborn old
man?"
Leaning back into the sofa, Daniels removed his shoes,
wriggled his wet socks and glared long and hard as the steam
began rising from his feet. "Get used to it," he grunted.
***
Fulbright rose early, padded barefoot into the kitchen and
switched on the kettle before sitting down across from the pine
breakfast bar. The Kerchenko affair was coming back to haunt
him: him and him alone. John McCone had spent the last five
years languishing in a retirement home; he was now over

196
eighty, nearly blind and close to death but sure in the
knowledge that the problem had been swept under the
political carpet and buried forever.
He poured the boiling water into his cup and thought
about his old boss. McCone had once told him the public
memory was short, that it was fickle and would soon move on
to the next scandal. They had had their fair share: Nixon and
Watergate, Reagan and Irangate. Both had come and gone,
but not Kerchenko and definitely not Kennedy. For some
inexplicable reason, the dead President’s thousand days seemed
forever emblazoned on the nation’s psyche. He groaned; a
good operation was one with no loose ends, McCone had said
that too. He had also said it was important, no, imperative,
that as few people as possible knew the truth. To facilitate this
requirement, many of the CIA’s files had been destroyed,
McCone’s retirement leaving Fulbright as sole keeper of the
truth.
No one but he and McCone had known the full extent of
Khrushchev's plan or the effort the Russian leader had
undertaken to produce an exact copy of Kennedy. The
German plastic surgeons had gone to extraordinary lengths to
ensure that even Rose Kennedy would be unable to distinguish
Kerchenko from her handsome son. The Russian's only worry
had been Jackie and Kerchneko himself had resolved that
problem.
Right now, Fulbright needed his old mentor; the
responsibility was beginning to take its toll.
***
Natasha had rejoined them. It was dark outside, even though
it was still mid-afternoon. There were the remains of a chicken
sandwich sitting in front of Daniels. He had already
bemoaned the size, taste and look of the dead bird.
"Why mental institutions?"
"They couldn’t very well let him wander the streets,"
Daniels muttered irritably as he brushed the crumbs off his

197
stomach. "Kennedy was the Lady Di of his time, his face was
known to a media-fed, global generation."
"A gulag?"
"Maybe, but my guess is Khrushchev would want to keep
his proverbial finger on the Kennedy button; you know, like
the nuclear codes. Lock him away in a gulag and he might lose
that control."
"What I don't understand is why they’ve never used him;
you know, wheeled him out and told the world that Harvey
Lee Oswald shot the wrong man?"
"Who knows?" Daniels yawned. "Perhaps he became more
of a liability than a trump card? It’s well documented that after
Brezhnev came to power the whole country was dragged back
down into totalitarianism. Rule by fear returned and
Khrushchev’s tentative attempts at enlightenment were
systematically pulled apart and buried."
"Maybe it’s simpler than that?" Natasha spoke out
hesitantly. She paused, both men turning and waiting for her
to continue. "What if no one knew we had him?"
The two Americans looked at each other. "It’s possible,"
Daniels finally agreed. "We know from the disks that the
Russians executed everyone who came in contact with
Kerchenko. Jesus, could it really be that simple?"
"It might explain the thirty year silence. When did
Brezhnev take over?"
"End of sixty-four," Daniels replied, casting his mind back.
"Khrushchev was given the elbow whilst he and Mrs K were
vacationing on the Black Sea. When he returned, Brezhnev had
taken control and already told the world that good old Nikita
was retiring due to ill health." He paused, trying to dredge up
more of the forgotten past. "Maybe Natasha’s right and the old
fox simply neglected to mention Kennedy was locked away for
a rainy day. Considering the circumstances, he might have been
more concerned with ensuring his own future."
"If that’s the case, whoever has him might not realise what
they’ve got?"

198
 "Assuming he’s still alive," Natasha added. "If we follow
your theory, he could have died years ago and no one would
be any the wiser."
Daniels bent down and retied his drying shoes. "So, how do
we find out?"
***
Al-Sawabi checked his watch for the fifth time in as many
minutes; Orlanov, as usual, was late. The Iraqi Colonel was
sitting at the back of the Baku-Livan restaurant, a dish of
chickpea, hummus and pine nuts in front of him. He had
caught the Metro to Pushlinskaya and walked the half-mile to
the small restaurant. Al-Sawabi loved Azeri food because it came
closest to reminding him of home and the food he ate as a boy.
He had pondered over Ubedidi’s words for the best part of
the afternoon, thinking of his four brothers and sister and the
family gathering they had each year at the end of Ramadan.
Al-Sawabi, like most Iraqis, was a devout Muslim and,
although seconded to Moscow, he regularly attended the
mosque near the new Olympic sports complex. He came from
a large family and had many grown-up cousins who in turn
had children of their own. Ubedidi had been right; if he failed
to get the disks, Saddam would make sure the Al-Sawabi name
died forever in one blood filled night.
He had thought back to the day he had joined the service,
and the pride in his father’s eyes. His other brothers worked
the land, only Rashid Al-Sawabi had gone to Baghdad
University and then into the services. Not that his brothers
would now be tilling the land; he knew at that very moment
they would be cowering in the sand trenches along the Kuwaiti
border with nearly a million other frightened souls. Al-Sawabi
hated the Americans for the unconditional support they gave
the Jews and the contempt they held for all Arab nations.
Saddam Hussein was right; they had to be taught a lesson and
the disks would ensure that lesson would never have to be
learned again.

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 He sat alone in the restaurant for another hour before
asking the owner to find him a taxi. When it arrived, he told
the driver to take him over to the club on the Moskva River,
his hand absently playing with the black handle of the
concealed Beretta as they crossed the city.
***
Having spent the best part of the day sitting in the hotel foyer
discussing what to do, Capriotti and Daniels eventually
decided to check in. Late in the afternoon, Natasha had taken
a taxi across town to the Moscow City Library. It was after six
by the time she returned and joined Capriotti up in their
room.
"I don't like being treated like a cheap hooker." She threw
the reference books onto the low dresser. "Why do people
always assume a woman asking for a man’s room is going there
to have sex?"
Capriotti was grinning as he pulled her down onto the
double bed and tugged hungrily at her loose fitting blouse.
"But that's what makes you so attractive."
An hour later they were stretched out at either end of the
stained cast-iron bath. The tub was nearly six feet in length
and one of the longest Capriotti had lain in. He tickled her
thighs with his foot. "You could sleep in here."
"Don't think I’m any happier, now that you’ve proved them
right," she replied haughtily, pushing his feet away. "And why
does the woman always end up with the taps?"
"You sounded pretty happy a couple of minutes ago."
"Really?" she snorted back, splashing him with water. "I
didn’t hear you complaining either."
"You most certainly did not." He slid under the water and
moved his hand between her outstretched thighs.
"You’ll drown if you stay under there." She tugged at his
hair as he surfaced, gasping for air. "Mind you," she moaned,
his hand again sliding beneath the water, "keep doing what
you’re doing and your demise will be well worth the sacrifice."

200
 Before he could answer, there was a loud knocking on the
door. "It’s me, open up."
Capriotti groaned as he pulled himself out of the water and
reached for the fluffy white towel on the chrome rail. "That
old fart might be past it, but you’d think he’d remember that
other people do still have sex!"
"We make love, you philistine." She glowered, throwing the
soap dish at him. "Hookers have sex!"
He closed the bathroom door and tightened the towel
around his middle before opening the room door.
Daniels had obviously showered, checked out the television
and was now bored. "Sorry to barge in but I thought you’d like
to go down and get some food."
Capriotti sighed theatrically and pulled a cigarette from the
pack on the dresser. "Ever heard of the phone?"
Daniels crossed to the window and then turned. "Sorry, did
I interrupt something?"
Despite himself, Capriotti smiled at his friend’s failed
attempt to feign innocence.
"Nothing that won’t keep," Natasha said, walking out of
the bathroom. She was wearing Capriotti’s shirt over skimpy
white panties.
"You know, it’s hard to believe but Betty once looked like
that."
"We’ll meet you downstairs in half an hour." Capriotti
laughed, pushing Daniels out of the room and slamming the
door shut behind him. He turned back to Natasha, watching
as she seductively began to undo the shirt buttons. "I thought
you said it would keep," he said, feeling his needs again
beginning to grow.
She kicked her panties across the room. "I lied."
***
Harvey was standing at the busy bar when Al-Sawabi’s taxi
drew up outside the club. It had been as easy to procure a gun
in Moscow as it was in any US city, Russian citizens being

201
permitted to carry concealed weapons, rush hour making the
task all the easier.
He didn’t noticed the Arab who entered the badly lit club
and asked if Orlanov was upstairs. He didn’t noticed the
doorman pick up the phone and check with Karina. He never
noticed the small man come through a side door and guide the
Arab through the crowd and over to the private elevator in the
corner.
Gouzenko led Al-Sawabi down the carpeted hall, past
Karina, to the far end and Orlanov's office. Knocking softly,
he stood back and allowed the Arab to enter.
"Sorry about our meeting," Orlanov said, getting up from
the desk, "but something important came up."
"We’ve agreed terms and the money’s been transferred." Al-
Sawabi's voice was cold and hard. "I want the disks."
"Of course you do," Orlanov said, well aware the Iraqi
Colonel was on edge. "Please, take a seat. You’ll have a drink?"
"Not for me, I’m booked on tonight’s flight to Jordan. All
I want are the disks." His eyes were like slits as he watched the
Russian, his gaze falling on the expensive oil paintings hanging
above the desk and the general decadence of the over furnished
room.
"Don't worry, you’ll have them." Al-Sawabi watched as
Orlanov sat back down behind the oak desk, his mind
recalling the earlier conversation with Ubedidi. "There’s just
one small problem---"
The Arab pulled the gun from inside his jacket and pointed
it at Orlanov. "I don't have a problem. I want those disks and
I really don't need to hear any more of your excuses."
Orlanov’s eyes flashed with anger. No one pulled a gun in
his office. He tried to relax, the reassuring smile still on his
face. "Rashid," he cooed, carefully pressing a button on the
underside of the desktop. "A deal’s a deal. There is no need for
old friends to do anything they might regret. The disks are
here, in my wall safe."
"If I leave without them, we’ll both have regrets. Open it."

202
 Orlanov slowly rose and turned towards the picture on the
wall behind his desk. As he did, the door burst open and
Gouzenko, gun drawn, stumbled into the room. Al-Sawabi
swivelled, aimed and fired in a single motion, the bullet
slamming into the shorter man’s chest, the sound of the
gunshot reverberating around the room as Gouzenko
crumpled forward onto the rug, blood seeping from the
wound and immediately beginning to form a pool around his
still body.
"Drop it." The silenced Walther PPK was pressed hard
against the base of Al-Sawabi’s head. Slowly, the Arab placed
the gun on the throw rug, his eyes watching warily as Orlanov
walked from behind the desk and kicked the small Beretta
across the floor. "I guess I should have read up on
hypothermia," he muttered, addressing the comment toward
the dying Gouzenko. "If you’d searched him like you should
have, none of this would have happened."
He turned and saw Karina standing at the door, her eyes
wide with shock and fear. Bending down, he picked the
Beretta off the floor and removed the clip. "Get hold of Boris
and tell him to get up here." The frightened girl nodded,
retreating to the sanctuary of her own desk as Orlanov closed
the door and stepped around the body on the rug.
"Now, about that problem I was hoping we could discuss.
The Americans have sent an agent over here to retrieve the
disks. I don't yet know what he looks like, only what he might
be calling himself. I had hoped we could join forces, but you
seem intent on trying to reduce my personnel costs."
Al-Sawabi was beginning to recover his own composure.
"Perhaps if you’d explained sooner…"
Orlanov looked over at the body on the carpet. The man
was still breathing but it was becoming shallower and more
agitated by the second, the upper half of his torso now
completely surrounded by a dark pool of blood. Orlanov’s
expression was that of someone who had discovered something
unpleasant and nasty on the underside of his shoe. "The

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American’s a CIA shooter, apparently travelling under the name
of David Goldstein, a Canadian from Toronto. I’d like to
dispose of him before we conclude our agreement. I think you’d
agree that he’s as much your responsibility as mine?"
"You’re holding all the cards at the moment."
"I am indeed." There was a knock on the door and the
driver entered the room. "Get something to clean up this
mess." Orlanov snapped, then, turning back to the Arab.
"How many assets have you got at the Embassy?"
"Four, including myself."
"Good, I’ll want them over at my house in an hour. We’ve
got to assume the American already has me under surveillance
and that he knows my movements."
"I’ll have to clear it first."
"Suit yourself, but remember, if I end up like the sorry mess
over there, neither you nor your government will see the disks.
No disks and I would assume you’ll be making a one-way visit
to Kindi Street. It would seem to be in all our interests to keep
me healthy."
Before Al-Sawabi could answer, the door opened and Boris
re-entered with several large sheets of plastic, placed them on
the carpet and deftly rolled the body over. As Orlanov
watched, Gouzenko’s soul seemed to groan and his erstwhile
employer casually leaned down and callously put a silenced
bullet through the roof of his mouth. Boris tied the plastic
sheeting and then slung the dead NKVD man over his
shoulder, nodding as Orlanov told him to throw it outside in
the dumpster and to bring the car around to the side door.
Al-Sawabi looked suitably shaken as the driver struggled
out of the room and made for the elevator and the basement
floor. Karina was back at her desk, her face pale and looking as
if she had paid an impromptu visit to the toilet. "Why don't
you make your call from here?" Orlanov said, the incident
already consigned to the back of his mind. "The sooner we
silence the American, the sooner we can get you on that flight
to Amman."

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 The Iraqi nodded his agreement, picked up the telephone
and called Ubedidi’s private number, the ex-KGB man
listening as Al-Sawabi repeated the address and then spoke
quickly in Arabic before hanging up. Orlanov motioned
towards the door. "Shall we go?"
Al-Sawabi looked towards the picture and the hidden wall
safe. "What about the disks?"
Smiling, the Russian pulled two black-coloured disks from
his inside pocket. "Close to my heart, Colonel, always close to
my heart."
Harvey was standing in the shadows as Boris pulled the big
Mercedes up to the side entrance. He wasn’t sure but, over the
sound of laughing Muscovites and trashy jazz, he was fairly
certain he had heard the unmistakable report of a gunshot. He
waited until the car had driven off with the three men and the
girl before picking the lock on the side door and slipping
inside. Old wooden stairs led up to the third floor and the
refurbished office area, the sounds from below vibrating
through his feet as he carefully climbed to the top landing.
The offices were now dark and empty, the cheap lock
presenting few problems and, within seconds, he was standing
beside the secretary’s desk. He turned on the small light and
checked the drawers but found nothing. There were two
offices on either side of the hall; one of them was empty, the
other used for storage. He checked them both carefully but
again found nothing. At the end of the corridor was Orlanov’s
locked office and, using a letter opener he had picked up off
the girl’s desk, he levered it between the doorjamb and the
door, easily snapping the lock. It was dark inside but his senses
immediately picked up the lingering smell of stale cordite.
Pulling his own gun, he entered the room, his foot finding the
sticky wet substance in the middle of the carpet. Stepping
back, he knelt down and ran an ungloved finger across the
fibres, immediately recognising the smell and feel of the
glutinous fluid.
The desk loomed out of the shadows and he checked the

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drawers before removing the oil paintings from the wall and
finding the small wall safe, cursing because he did not have the
time or the equipment to open it. Using the paper knife again,
he ripped at the plush leather cushions on the couch, exposing
the thick padding. Returning to the desk, he unhurriedly pulled
some files out of the drawers and stuffed them into the torn
cushions. Collecting the paintings, he stacked them on top,
walked back down the hall, checked the toilets, found what he
was looking for, and began squirting cleaner across the ripped
leather and then over to the desk. Next, he unplugged the
computer, placed it on the couch, lit a match and waited until
the fire took hold. He crossed to the window, tugged the
curtains off their runners, squirted cleaning fluid over them, and
then stuffed them into two of the larger desk drawers. Another
match flickered and then he moved back towards the door, the
couch already alight, acrid black smoke and fumes curling up
the walls and creeping along the ceiling. He watched in
fascination, as the smoke crawled towards the door and began
to descend into the room, the flames beginning to crackle and
lick at the bare floorboards as they followed the cleaner trail
across to the desk. It was already alight, the two bottom drawers
burning intensely and Harvey waited for another full minute,
until satisfied the whole room was ablaze. The smoke was
already thick and toxic as he backed down the hall to the
wooden stairwell. Within minutes, the whole top floor would
be an inferno, the fact that over one hundred people were
drinking and dancing below meaning nothing to Harvey.
***
Daniels had gone to bed early, much to Capriotti’s relief. They
had spent most of the evening going through the reference
books Natasha had brought back from the library. She had
found a couple on the Kennedy years and several on
Khrushchev. Capriotti had no idea what they were looking for
but they had little else to go on. The Kennedy books were
imports and written by American authors, as was one of the

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books on Khrushchev. The Russian leader’s official biographer
had provided the fourth and, although once banned, the dust
had been removed with the advent of glasnost; the thick tome
now back on the library shelves. Daniels had gone to bed with
the two Kennedy books. Capriotti was sitting at the small
table by the window, leafing through the American written
biography on Khrushchev.
"There’s not much in here," he yawned, looking over
towards the bed. Natasha was lying on her stomach; the
Russian- written biography propped up on the pillows.
She looked up from the page she was reading. "What did
you expect, a big red arrow saying ‘Kennedy is here’?"
"Very droll." He closed the book and joined her on the bed.
"I may be old and getting soft around the middle but there’s
no need to cast unkind aspersions."
"As if I would," she scoffed, closing her own book. She
stretched and let if fall to the floor. "What are you going to do
if we find him?"
"God knows, even if he is alive and compos mentis, who’s
going to believe we’ve found JFK? I can’t really see him telling
a tabloid-satiated America that he didn’t die in Dallas and that
for the past twenty something years he’s been hiding out in
Russia. Just imagine Jackie’s reaction? She buries husband
number one on national television, marries husband number
two and then discovers husband number one is alive and well
and living over here."
Natasha pulled back the covers and crawled under the
sheet. "She must have known. He may have looked and
spoken like the real thing but a woman would have noticed."
"I’d have thought so," he muttered, his mind harking back
to the poignant image of a two-year-old John saluting as his
father’s flag-draped coffin was carried past on the horse-drawn
gun carriage. "Surely the kids would have spoken out?"
"Maybe he told her they’d be hurt if they said anything?"
she mused, wondering aloud what her father could have said
or done to prevent Jackie speaking out.

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 "I suppose, although I can’t see it. Secret service agents
constantly surrounded them. It wouldn't have taken much to
tell someone. Another thing, he was away a lot of the time. He
had to be certain of Jackie’s silence."
The deep-rooted feelings surfaced again and with them, the
hate she now felt for her dead father. "It doesn’t matter, he got
what he deserved."
"There’s something you should probably know," he said,
placing protective arms around her. "Jackie Kennedy gave
birth to a premature baby boy in August sixty-three. They
called him Patrick but he died from complications a few days
after the birth."
Natasha didn’t speak for a long time. When she finally did,
her eyes were full of tears, the words unclear and in Russian.
Capriotti held her close, realising that she was crying for the
long-dead brother she would never know.
***
Orlanov was sitting with Al-Sawabi in the magnificent study
when the call came. The Iraqi had never before been inside
such a beautiful house. The rooms were large and spacious, the
ceilings a full fifteen feet above the stripped wooden floors, the
highly polished grain matching as it chased across the room.
Expensive Persian and Indian throw rugs were casually
scattered around the room, imported furniture from France
blending perfectly with the ornate decor.
Large oil paintings hung under old-fashioned brass wall
lights, some of the artists readily recognisable. In the corner
of the study was a magnificent antique globe, which, when
opened, doubled as a bar. Al-Sawabi sighed silently,
thinking of his father’s small brick house and the single
room where his four brothers and sister had slept. There was
only so much money a man should have and, at that
moment, it seemed to the Iraqi that Orlanov had been
blessed. His illusion was shattered as Orlanov banged down
the phone.

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 "That was Georgy, my bar manager. There’s been a fire at
the club; the whole building’s alight."
"The American?"
"Who else?" Orlanov growled. "How long before your men
get here?"
"Ubedidi said they’re on their way."
Orlanov leaned back in the leather chair and groaned
inwardly. For the first time in his life he began to realise that
his own greed might be coming back to haunt him. He should
have agreed the deal with Al-Sawabi and walked away with the
hundred million. It was greed and the thrill of baiting the
Americans that had landed him in the situation he now found
himself in. He sat forward in the chair. "How good are your
men?"
"The best," Al-Sawabi smiled confidently.
"They had better be." He got up and crossed to the door.
"Come on, I’ll show you my security arrangements."
The house had a Russian-made alarm system, sophisticated
German-built motion sensors and remotely controlled
cameras at each corner of the building. Boris was sitting at a
small console, in front of him were four television screens,
each giving wide-angle views of the grounds. He could move
each camera with a plastic joystick, a panel behind him
showing the position of the motion sensors, the glowing green
lights confirming that they were activated.
As they watched the screens, a large station wagon pulled
up in front of the gate. Al-Sawabi immediately recognised the
vehicle but the careful Orlanov told Boris to go down to the
road and make sure it was the Iraqi security detail. Several
minutes later, the radio crackled and Boris asked Orlanov to
open the gates. The station wagon drove up the drive to the
front door, Al-Sawabi meeting it on the steps and quickly
appraising the three men of the situation. Orlanov felt Al-
Sawabi’s earlier confidence was sorely misplaced, the young
Iraqis seeming better qualified to police a school outing than
stop a determined CIA agent. This, even though each man

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carried a Russian-made Kalashnikov automatic rifle and
several clips of spare ammunition. Al-Sawabi sent one man to
the attic and told the other two to stand guard outside.
Orlanov explained the positioning of the motion sensors,
showing Al-Sawabi where the guards should be placed to
ensure their line of fire overlapped.
Harvey had seen the station wagon arrive. He was standing
beneath the snow-clad branches of a large tree in the adjacent
garden. The higher lie of the land allowed him to overlook
Orlanov’s grounds and he watched with a wry smile as the
gunmen were positioned. He had noted the cameras on the
front and rear gable ends of the big house and felt certain there
would be motion sensors scattered around the garden. He
settled down for a long night, knowing full well that it would
be suicidal to try and enter the KGB Major’s house.

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Monday, December 3rd

C apriotti stirred, rolled over and reached out for Natasha,

his sleepy hand patting around the bed until his brain
worked out she was not beside him. Opening his eyes, he sat
up and called out her name but there was no answer.
Stretching, he grabbed the watch off the table and checked the
time; it was six thirty in the morning. A concerned frown
crossed his face as he traipsed through to the bathroom, rinsed
his face and turned on the bath taps. The bedroom was
freezing. He looked out the window, suddenly transfixed by
the new view; the whole city seemingly transformed overnight.
The streets were piled thick with snow, as were the roofs of the
buildings across from the hotel. Four stories below he could
see a couple of workers struggling through several feet of
powdery snow. The sky was still dark but the beginnings of a
new day were forming off to his right. The scene reminded
him of a Christmas card and not the drab oppressive city he
had come to know. He pulled the fluffy towel from his bag and
turned off the taps. The water was a yellowy brown with bits
of rust and dirt swirling around the bottom of the bath but at
least it was hot and, right now, that was all that mattered.
Getting in, he slipped under the surface, his mind wandering
back over the past few days and finally coming to rest on
Natasha.
They had spoken long into the night, Capriotti the father
who had lost his daughter, Natasha the daughter who had lost
her father. Although they had found a common bond, there
was a difference; he had known Julie. Natasha had no memory
of Alexander Kerchenko.
Gradually, he had opened his heart, the locked memories
slowly changing from dark random thoughts into palpable and
indisputably real events. Natasha had listened, prodding where
necessary as he began to speak about the daughter he had

211
loved and lost. At first, the words came slowly, Natasha
allowing him to form and then think their sounds. As more
and more memories began to surface the words became easier
until finally they spilled out in a torrent as he remembered the
good times, her birthdays, her first day at kindergarten, the
magical trip to Disneyland. He told her about sitting at the
end of her bed, the books he used to read and how impatient
she became when he told her it was time to go to sleep.
Natasha had asked about Susan and he described how they
met, the fun in the early days and the plans they had made. He
spoke about his grandfather and the excitement when he
turned up for the wedding, the black Cadillac full of presents
and Vinny sulking because he had asked Jimmy Delaney to be
best man.
She had asked about little Jimmy, and he had laughed out
loud, remembering the time he and Delaney had taken him
fishing. The boat had overturned, Delaney disappearing under
the water because they’d forgotten to untie the stern rope, his
shouting he couldn't swim and finally all of them laughing
when they realised he was floundering in four foot of water.
Standing on the wooden dock, his son had clapped his hands
with glee, shouting out to ‘Uncle Jimmy’ to do it again.
Later, she had asked if there had been anyone else since
Susan. He had become evasive and, like women the world
over, she had pushed until he had admitted, yes, there had
been several others. She had made him list them, asking
whether any had been serious and if he was seeing someone
now, unimpressed when he had reminded her of Orlanov and
how defensive she had become when he’d mentioned his
name.
When they’d finally made love, it was soft and tender, the
feelings of intimacy and desire growing and fanning out with
each thrusting stroke. It had been a long time since he’d felt
such feelings and, much later, and after she had fallen asleep,
he had marvelled at how the woman lying beside him had
unblocked the dam, had broken down the protective wall.

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 His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a key
turning in the door. Natasha appeared and behind her
Daniels, Capriotti swearing loudly and trying to pull the towel
off the sink. "Is there nothing sacred," he shouted, stretching
out a wet arm and slamming the bathroom door shut.
"Don't mind us, you get your beauty sleep whilst the
drones do the real work."
"We’ve found something," Natasha said, through the closed
door. "Finish up and come and take a look." Capriotti
mumbled something indiscernible and then opened the door
and stepped back into the small bedroom.
Daniels looked over at the bleary eyes and stubbly growth
on Capriotti's face. "You might have shaved."
"Given half a chance, I would have." He pulled a cigarette
from the open pack, lit it and then sat back down on the bed.
"Okay, so what’s so important that you two feel it necessary to
interrupt my bath?"
"Natasha came to my room an hour ago," Daniels smirked
lasciviously. "Obviously bored with her uninspiring bed
partner, she felt an older, more sophisticated man might spice
up her life…" He stopped in mid-hyperbole as her elbow
caught him hard in the stomach. "Okay, okay, she found
something in the biography and wanted to see if my book had
a similar reference."
"Look." She grabbed the book out of Daniels’ hands and
turned to the reference section at the back.
Capriotti stared at the Cyrillic letters and then back at
Natasha. "Impressive," he yawned, "but I haven’t suddenly
learned Russian overnight."
She glared at him. "Remember the photo of my father in
Moscow?" She waited until he nodded and then carried on.
"The files referred to the closed centre in Gorky, they made no
mention of Moscow."
"So?" Capriotti said, unsure what she was getting at.
"According to the date on the back of the photograph, he
was here only days before the switch. Doesn’t it strike you as

213
odd they would go to all that trouble to keep him hidden and
then allow him to come here and see my mother?"
"I suppose."
"He was more than likely brought here to meet with
Khrushchev and then fly on to Vienna," Daniels said. "They
certainly wouldn’t want him making the trip on his own."
"You’ve lost me, why is this suddenly important?"
Natasha pulled the book away and turned on him. "Why
are you being so dense? Khrushchev’s biographer refers to a
private clinic where he regularly used to prepare for overseas
meetings. According to the dates, he was there the week before
the Vienna meeting."
"And you think they brought Kerchenko to the same
clinic?"
Daniels slowly clapped his hands in sarcastic applause.
"The crowd cheers as the penny drops."
Capriotti gave his fat friend a scathing look; it was one
thing being called dense by Natasha, quite another when it
came from Dan Daniels. "Do we know where it is?"
She shook her head. "I'm not sure, but at least it’s a starting
point."
"If it was Khrushchev’s private sanatorium, what better
place to keep tabs on your biggest political asset?"
"You have been busy." Capriotti smiled. "How do we find
out if it’s still there?"
"Simple, we catch a cab and take a look."
***
Frank Harvey was back in the small room overlooking the
Sheremetev Hospital, having stood shivering for a further two
hours behind the large oak tree. Originally, he had planned to
watch the house all night but the falling snow and unbearable
cold had forced him to change his plans. He had walked over
a mile before finding a roving cab. The driver had mentioned
a big warehouse fire down by the river and Harvey had asked
to be taken over there so they could have a look. Happy for the

214
additional money, the man had eagerly complied, the red glow
in the sky evident from several miles away. The carriageway
was blocked off and, as they looked down onto the row of
warehouses, they could see that the whole street was alight.
The old wooden roof timbers had caught and the fire had
spread along the adjoining block. Harvey could see fire
engines, ambulances and police vehicles and had smiled in the
back of the cab, confident that whatever had been in the small
safe would be nothing more than molten ash.
He stood up and looked across at the hospital, his face
frowning. Orlanov should not have been expecting a visitor.
The sudden arrival of a carload of Kalashnikov-carrying Arabs
was unnerving and, whilst it could of course be coincidence,
Harvey, like Orlanov, did not believe in such things.
***
"All the book mentioned was Zamoskvareche," Natasha said,
as they drove around the large residential area to the south of
the Moskva.
Daniels groaned, the excitement of the hunt quickly
dissipating once he realised they would have to go out in the
snow. "It’s like looking for the proverbial needle; does no one
bother to sweep these roads?"
Natasha looked forlornly at the snow-covered street signs.
"There’s no money."
"Let’s get out and ask someone," Capriotti suggested.
"We’re never going to find it without help." The car slid up to
the curb and Natasha paid off the driver. "I’d hate to think
what Siberia is like," the American mumbled as the car
slithered back out into the middle of the road. Across from
them and set back from the sidewalk was an impressive
looking building. "What about over there, it looks pretty
grand?"
Natasha took the lead. "I think it’s called the Tretyakov
Gallery."
They trudged through the snow to the front of the

215
magnificent stone edifice. It was rectangular with gothic pillars
at the top of wide steps. Inside was a large expanse of terrazzo
flooring and, over in the corner, a wood and glass booth
protected an old woman sitting on an uncomfortable looking
stool. She was reading a book but smiled as her visitors came
through the main doors.
"Three?" she asked as Natasha approached the window and
deftly passed some crumpled ruble notes through the hole.
"I’m hoping you might be able to help us, we’re looking for
a private clinic."
"Clinic?" the woman repeated, quickly sliding the money
to the other side of the glass partition.
"Perhaps an old sanatorium." Several more notes passed
under the glass.
The old woman leaned forward, her look suddenly
conspiratorial, her voice an exaggerated whisper. "There was a
private sanatorium but it shut down years ago. I think it’s an
orphanage now."
"Do you know where it is?" Natasha asked, her voice
betraying the feeling of disappointment.
"Go back the way you came until you reach Ulitsa
Bolshaya. Turn left and follow it to the Kempinsky Hotel. The
old sanatorium sat in the hotel grounds and backed onto the
river."
She thanked the woman, grimacing with frustration as
Capriotti held open the door and they stepped back out into
the snow. "There was a sanatorium around here but it’s now
an orphanage."
"Appropriate, I suppose," Daniels mumbled, beginning to
feel the effects of wet snow on unprotected trouser bottoms.
"After all, Kennedy did lose his family."
They walked the quarter of a mile to Ulitsa and turned left.
The road was wide with large houses sitting at the end of long
winding driveways, tall, snow-covered trees and bushes
surrounding and screening them from prying eyes. Daniels
was now really feeling the cold and the strain of continuously

216
walking through twelve inches of wet, lying snow. He was out
of breath and no longer complaining. Capriotti stopped and
waited for him to catch up. "Are you okay?" he asked as the
older man came to an enforced stop, his breathing heavy, his
face flushed with the unaccustomed exertion.
He was rasping, holding his side and beginning to sweat
profusely. "Not really, maybe you kids should go on ahead and
let me follow at my own pace."
"Martyr." Natasha smiled, taking his arm. "If we left you
here we’d find a snowman when we returned."
They rested for several minutes until Daniels recovered his
breath, Natasha tightening her grip on his arm and guiding
him onto the road where the snow was more thickly packed.
It took them half an hour to reach the Balschug Kempinsky
Hotel. They ordered coffee and cakes for Daniels and told him
to rest in the lounge whilst they checked out the orphanage.
The building had begun life as a private house, its later
owners converting it to a hotel. There were high turrets
guarding the front, the back now extended and housing
additional bedrooms. The extension was a much later, cheaper
addition and looked out of place with the architecture of the
main property. Natasha asked the receptionist if there was an
orphanage in the grounds. She nodded, pointing to a side door
and telling them to follow the path down to the river.
The snow was falling again as they carefully made their way
along the covered path towards a low building overlooking the
slowly flowing river. The view was magnificent and they stood
and admired the sweep of the Moskva and the unique
panorama of the Kremlin and St Basil’s Cathedral on the other
side.
"You don't really appreciate the size of the thing until you
see it from this angle." Capriotti shivered, pointing towards
the gold domes and spires. "I read somewhere it’s the biggest
granite building in the world." Natasha followed his gaze and
then, with a sudden gasp, reached for her jacket pocket and
the photograph of her father.

217
 "Look!" She turned the picture so he could see the tops of
the Kremlin spires above the faded background.
"Sweet Jesus, it was taken from somewhere around here!"
***
Fulbright was sleeping when the call was automatically
transferred from his office’s private line to the house. He
groaned, leaned over and pulled the phone towards him, the
illuminated clock beside it reading five thirty. The voice at the
other end immediately brought him to his senses.
"I’m listening," he said, as Orlanov explained what he
wanted. Fulbright started to object but was cut short as the
Russian repeated his chilling threat.
"Get that sick bastard off my back or the disks leave for
Baghdad tonight." The telephone went dead.
Fulbright fumed in the darkness, finally rising and
stomping through to the bathroom. He showered, dressed and
then went down to the study and dialled Webster's home
number. He explained what Orlanov wanted and what would
happen if they did not agree.
James Webster was not one for making quick decisions and
particularly not in the early hours of the morning. Fulbright
told him they were running out of time and that unless they
complied, the Iraqis might gain the means to force Bush, and
therefore the coalition, to back down. Webster hesitated at the
other end and, not for the first time, Fulbright wished that
McCone was still running the show. John McCone had
demonstrated a certain clarity of thought along with an instant
grasp of what was needed and how it should be attained.
Fulbright missed that decisiveness. He waited impatiently as
Webster again went over their options, the man at the other
end of the line eventually concluding they did not have any
and that the only way to retrieve the disks was to agree to
Orlanov’s terms. Fulbright hung up, wondering how Bush
could have elevated such a dithering imbecile to the head of
the CIA.

218
 It was still dark as he skirted DC and made for his office in
Langley. He had the radio on but was not listening, his mind
going back to the clandestine meeting nearly thirty years
earlier. At first, both he and McCone had not believed the
Russian Foreign Minister. Like Bush the previous night, they
had initially thought that the Russians were playing some ill-
conceived and pointless game in an attempt to destabilise the
security forces' confidence in their Chief Executive.
Andrei Gromyko might well have been known as the 'arctic
fox' but even so, the two CIA men were not prepared for, nor
were they willing to believe, that the Russians had kidnapped
the American President and replaced him with Alexander
Kerchenko. The meeting had taken place in a Vancouver
hotel; their respective aides waiting uncomfortably in an
adjoining room as Gromyko, McCone and Fulbright talked
through the night and on into the early morning.
At first, McCone had been openly scathing and it soon
became obvious that there was no love lost between the
Director of the CIA and the USSR's Foreign Minister. They
had crossed swords before and both men had a deep and
abiding distrust for the other. At one point, McCone had
begun shouting at Gromyko, the tension rising several degrees,
the men in the adjoining room looking suspiciously at each
other and the half-closed connecting doors. Had the subject
matter not been so sensitive, Fulbright felt sure the Russian
would have gathered up his battered leather briefcase and
stormed out of the hotel and back to the Ilyushin waiting on
the tarmac a mile away. Instead, he had settled back onto the
vinyl cushions of the cheap couch and pulled a thick dossier of
documents out of the case. Spreading them on the table, he
had begun to explain Operation Poslezavtra and the
complexities of changing and training one man so that he
looked, acted and behaved like another.
Over the ensuing hours, Gromyko had shown them the
pictures taken by the German surgeons over a thirty-month
period. Kerchneko had initially been chosen because of his

219
uncanny resemblance to Kennedy. He was the same height
and build as the target and had the same eye and hair
colouring, was well educated, a natural at languages and
around the same age.
The KGB had scoured the country for the best plastic
surgeons, eventually assembling a ten-man team consisting of
six Germans, three Russians and a Finn. The Germans had all
been captured during the final push through Poland and on
into Germany, their debased expertise learned and then honed
in the concentration camps of Dachau and Auschwitz.
Gromyko had produced their files, including the sickening
pictures of experiments carried out on hundreds of unwilling
human guinea pigs during the dark years between nineteen
forty-two and forty-five. Fulbright had seen a number of
Holocaust photographs but nothing could prepare him for the
graphic, chilling pictures the Russian had casually spread
across the coffee table. The German surgeons had
experimented with living patients, grafting limbs and all
manner of appendages from one to the other. Many of their
victims had been purposely and systematically burned, others
kept alive simply as skin and appendage donors. Through trial
and error, they had amassed a vast amount of knowledge on
surgical technique, skin grafting, scar management and the
best means to avoid infection and donor rejection.
Both he and McCone had been horrified by the appalling
pictures and had sat in stunned silence as Gromyko had taken
them through the thirty months of painstaking surgery. As the
minutes turned to hours, they had begun to realise the lengths
to which Khrushchev had been prepared to go to transform
their man into a carbon copy, a clone of John Fitzgerald
Kennedy.
Gromyko had produced more files pertaining to the
Russian, German and British scholars who had been used to
teach Kerchenko every known aspect of Kennedy's life. He
produced the black and white film of Kennedy speaking,
Kennedy smiling, Kennedy laughing, Kennedy angry, the

220
man's mannerisms, habits, his unconscious movements, the
things only his mother might know. It was breathtaking and,
at one point, McCone had excused himself and retired to the
bathroom, later telling Fulbright that he had been physically
sick. Gromyko had architectural drawings, film and black and
white photographs of the White House and showed them the
pictures of the half scale mock-up they had secretly built at the
Gorky training camp. As each subsequent hour passed it
became increasingly obvious that the small, nondescript man
across the table was telling the truth. The politician running
the most powerful country in the world was Alexander
Kerchenko, a Russian spy.
An hour later, Fulbright parked his car in the underground
car park and caught the secure elevator to his office. He hated
Kerchenko and everything and everyone involved with the
affair. He placed a call on the scrambler to the American
Embassy in Moscow and explained to the CIA’s section chief
what he wanted.
After hanging up, a shocked Tom Galbraith called in his
own deputy and told him Harvey had gone rogue and that
Langley had ordered his immediate termination. They had
also asked them to intensify the around the clock watch on the
Iraqi Embassy and report immediately back to Washington if
anyone left the complex.
***
Capriotti had moved fifty yards to the right of the path and
was now standing in two feet of very wet snow. Natasha was in
front of him, the picture still in her hand. "That’s it," he said,
bending forward and squinting at the old photograph and
then at the spires over her right shoulder. "He must have been
standing right about here when it was taken." He took the
picture and reversed positions so she could see the spires over
his shoulder.
She shivered, but this time not from the cold. It was the
stark realisation that, almost three decades before, Alexander

221
Kerchenko had stood on the very same spot. "My father was
here." The enormity of the moment seemed to hang over them
like a crystallised sword of Damocles.
He took her hand as they trudged back through the snow
to the path. The orphanage was made from whitewashed
blocks, the thickened windows covered by metal bars running
up and across their stone frames. The bars were old, painted
black, and appeared to be the same age as the building. The
orphanage did not look as old as the hotel and, if asked to
guess, Capriotti would have said it dated from the mid-
twenties, perhaps early thirties. The snow-covered path wound
around the building, ending at the main doors that faced out
onto the riverbank. The door handles were polished brass and
someone had obviously been given the task of ensuring they
were kept pristine and clean. There was an old cast-iron
doorknocker high up on the left-hand side, on the right a
more modern doorbell. Natasha pushed the white button and
stood back.
They waited a full minute before they heard bolts being
pulled back and the doors opened. A stooped young man
wearing a white jacket and blue cotton trousers peered out
from behind the left door. He was in his late twenties with
short, blond hair and looked gaunt, his eye sockets sunken and
bloodshot.
"We’d like to speak with someone in charge," Natasha said,
recovering quickly from the initial shock of the young man’s
appearance.
"What do you want?" The voice was deep and almost
devoid of any inflection.
"Okay Nikolai, time to get back to your room," a voice said
from behind the thick wooden doors. The young man
disappeared and a homely looking woman in her fifties took
his place. "Sorry about that, Nikolai likes to open doors, as
well as answer telephones. How can I help you?"
Natasha explained that they were visiting Moscow on
holiday and that one of her distant relatives had spent some

222
time here in the early sixties. He had lost contact with the
family and they were trying to trace him.
"I’m not sure we can help," the woman said
sympathetically. "Although the locals refer to us as an
orphanage, we’ve been looking after the disadvantaged for the
past twenty-five years. Before then, the facility was used as a
private sanatorium. When did you say your relative stayed
here?"
"It would have been the summer of sixty-one."
"Come in out of the cold. Some of the older staff have been
here for a long time, maybe they can help you." She stood
back and they moved into a small reception area. The floors
were covered with dark red tiles, the walls white like the
exterior. Capriotti noticed that the two doors leading off the
reception area had push-button security locks. There was also
a distinct antiseptic smell, which reminded him of the time
he’d had his tonsils removed in a Brooklyn hospital. "Wait here
and I’ll see if Anna is still on duty." Natasha thanked her,
watching as the woman disappeared behind another heavy
door.
"Dan mentioned the other night that if the roles had been
reversed, we’d have kept Kerchenko in a mental institution."
"It’s horrible; did you see the bars on the windows?"
"It’s not any better in the States. Anyone who doesn’t
conform is locked away in a similar type of institution."
Before she could reply, the woman was back. "Anna’s out at
the moment," she said ensuring the door had closed and
locked behind her. "She’s back on duty tomorrow. If you like,
I can ask her to call you."
"Our friend’s staying across at the hotel," Natasha said
quickly. "What if we drop past again tomorrow afternoon?"
"If you give me your name, I’ll tell her you called," the
woman replied, showing them back through the double doors
and out onto the river bank path.
"Kerchenko, Natasha Kerchenko."
They walked back up the path in silence. As they reached

223
the hotel Natasha turned and looked at the Kremlin spires in
the fading light. "I shouldn’t have told her my name, should
I?"
He followed her gaze back across the river and again
marvelled at the gold-covered spires. "You miss him, don’t you?"
She smiled sadly, the picture still clutched tightly in her
hand. "It’s hard to miss someone you never knew."
***
Orlanov looked down onto the warehouse shells that until
recently had housed his business empire. The ambulances had
gone but two fire engines were still squatting outside the
smouldering row of buildings, both they and the police
waiting for the heavy lifting gear to arrive. The old frontage
was totally blocked, the roof having collapsed and fallen
inwards. As it dropped, the outer wall had come down and
piled a soggy mix of bricks, soot and mortar along a fifty yard
stretch of alleyway.
Orlanov had spent the best part of the day with the
OMON investigating officers. Twelve bodies had already been
pulled out of the rubble and another seven were still missing,
presumed buried under the hundreds of tons of stone and
slate. The fire had spread along the roof space and had brought
down the adjacent building and severely damaged the one next
to it. Orlanov had owned all three buildings and was now
standing beside his car, parked up on the carriageway.
"I’d leave Moscow before this madman strikes again," Al-
Sawabi said, his eyes still fixed on the destruction below.
Orlanov failed to answer immediately. The devastation
caused by the fire’s intensity had stunned him. It was not the
corpses or the loss of the buildings, it was the sudden
realisation that for the first time in his life he was being
hunted. Orlanov was not used to being the prey. All his adult
life he had played the predator, first with the KGB and then
with the files provided by his KGB contacts. Suddenly, a
shadowy finger of fear had touched him and he did not like it.

224
 "Perhaps that's not such a bad idea," he muttered, turning
back to Al-Sawabi. "It might be time to spend some of that
money you’ve deposited in my account."
The Arab was unnerved by the sound of doubt in the
Russian’s voice. "I need the files," he said.
Orlanov hesitated and then pulled two disks out of an
inside pocket. He fingered them for a second before handing
them to Al-Sawabi, watching as the Iraqi Colonel carefully
placed them into his own pocket. "Make sure the Americans
pay a high price, Rashid."
Al-Sawabi didn’t answer. He could already see and feel the
money and power Saddam would bestow on him and his
family, the reassuring warmth seeming to radiate outwards
from the disks now nestling against his chest. He followed
Orlanov back along the carriageway to the car, Boris slamming
the doors shut and then quickly moving off into the growing
afternoon traffic.
As the car pulled away, a man in a dirty blue overall put
down his shovel. He was standing on the far side of the rubble,
in his other hand, a pair of small, high-powered binoculars.
He had watched Orlanov and the Arab get out of the car and
look over his handiwork, had watched as the Russian had
taken two computer disks from his pocket and given them to
the Arab. Frank Harvey now knew why the Arabs had been at
the house in numbers. Orlanov had sold them the disks.
Several minutes later he was on the carriageway and
gathering speed, eventually catching the Mercedes as it slowed
down to take the turn-off to Tverskaya. Harvey also slowed
and watched as the car ahead negotiated the sharp right hand
turn at the bottom of the ramp. He held back, clipping the
snow-covered curb and cursing as the old BMW’s wide offside
tyre slid into a snow-hidden pothole. A lesser car would have
snapped a suspension brace but the German-made vehicle
dipped, bottomed out and then recovered, the body in the
trunk crashing against the inside panels before lying still.
Harvey smiled. The cab driver had been very

225
accommodating, even suggesting that now the Cold War was
over Russia and America could be good friends. Harvey had
nodded in agreement as he stuck the gun into the shocked
man’s ribs and forced him to pull into a deserted side road.
Getting out of the car, he had opened the driver’s door and
told the frightened man to unlock the trunk. The Russian had
obeyed, stepping into the slush and moving around to the
back and the cavernous space. In an instant, the gun was
pressed against his chest and the small calibre bullet was
ripping though his heart and right lung before lodging against
his fifth vertebra. He was dead before the legs buckled and his
body toppled forward into the voluminous trunk. There was
no mess, little noise and no fear of the police trying to locate
a stolen cab.
The body rolled again as Harvey pulled up several hundred
yards further down the street from Orlanov’s house. He kept
the engine running and the heater on as he waited. He didn’t
have long. Five minutes later, the gates again swung open and
the station wagon moved carefully onto the street. Harvey
ducked, the lights catching the BMW as the heavily laden car
passed. He counted four, including the driver and decided that
Orlanov would have to wait. Spinning the big BMW around,
he pointed the nose in the direction the station wagon had
taken and began to follow, missing the lights of the second car
that pulled out from the other end of the long street.
***
Ubedidi had suggested that perhaps he should check the disks
before boarding the plane to Amman and the tortuous ten-
hour drive through the desert to Baghdad. They were sitting in
the same study Aziz had been in several days earlier. Al-Sawabi
had already shown the Ambassador the disks, although he had
not let them leave his grip. "What would happen," Ubedidi
asked, "if there was an accident or if it was Allah's will that the
plane should crash?"
Al-Sawabi carefully considered the older man’s words. He

226
was right. It made sense not only to check that the
information was on the disks but that there was a second copy,
in case of an accident. He crossed to the Ambassador’s desk,
downloaded the files onto the hard drive and then copied the
file onto two more disks. Once finished, he pulled up several
pages but neither man spoke nor read German.
"It could be anything," Ubedidi said, staring at the
flickering screen. Al-Sawabi pulled the second floppy out of
the disk drive and switched off the machine.
"Orlanov told me the files were originally held by the Stasi
in East Berlin."
"Let’s hope he’s right. What time is your flight?"
"I’ll need to leave in about an hour," the other man
grinned, still unable to control the tremors of excitement
coursing through his veins. "I’ve arranged for Ahmed to drive
me to the airport and, with any luck, should be in Baghdad by
this time tomorrow night."
Ubedidi held out his hand. "Good luck then, I don't need
to tell you how important this information could be to our
country." The Ambassador also knew how important the
information would be to the future of Rashid Al-Sawabi. The
older man’s tone and approach had subtly changed since his
intelligence officer had returned with the disks. One day, he
might find himself reporting to the Colonel now standing in
front of him, the balance of power already beginning to shift.
Before today, Al-Sawabi would never have been allowed in the
Ambassador’s private study, nor would he have presumed that
the Ambassador’s driver would take him to the airport. Before
today, Ubedidi would have been furious at any such
presumption but not anymore, both men all too aware that
the disks had changed everything.
Al-Sawabi bowed as he left the room, crossed the hall and
walked back down the stairs to his small apartment at the far
side of the complex. His bags were already packed and sitting
in the doorway of the cramped bedroom that for over two
years had been his only home. He would not be sorry to leave

227
Moscow. He may have enjoyed the culture, the museums and
sometimes even the people, but it was not home. He thought
about his father and how proud he would be when the Al-
Sawabi name was proclaimed throughout Iraq. He thought
about his brothers and how his actions would ensure they
could return to the small farms and their wives and children.
He only wished his mother was still alive to enjoy his moment.
Ahmed had already pulled the Ambassador’s car around to
the front of the main building and helped the Colonel place
his two bags into the trunk. As Al-Sawabi sunk into the leather
seats, he wondered whether he might one day be given a driver
and a sleek Mercedes.
The drive to the airport would normally take an hour on a
clear night but, with the roads as they now were, Al-Sawabi
had decided to give himself two hours. Ahmed switched on
the radio as they joined the Leningrad highway and slithered
northwest towards Sheremetevo-2. The International airport
had been built for the Moscow Olympics and, even before its
completion ten years earlier, had been woefully inadequate.
Not that Al-Sawabi cared. He stared out of the tinted windows
as they passed a huge sculpture in the form of giant anti-tank
‘hedgehogs’. He knew the monument marked the closest point
the invading Nazi armies had reached in nineteen forty-one.
He also knew it had been nothing short of a miracle that the
ragged Russian army had stopped them and then forced them
back. In many ways, it seemed to Al-Sawabi that his own
country was on the brink of destruction and that he and the
disks were the only thing standing between salvation and
annihilation.
This thought was still warm in his mind when he felt a
muffled bump and the car lurched right and then left as the
driver tried to compensate. Ahmed swore, Al-Sawabi
swivelling around in his seat and staring out the back window.
Directly behind the Mercedes was a large black car, its lights
off. It was closing in again and Al-Sawabi could only watch as
the high-powered BMW pulled to within several feet and then

228
swung left, clipping the Mercedes and again sending it
slithering across the highway. This time, Ahmed failed to
correct in time, the nearside wing crashing into the central
barrier, the big car bouncing off the concrete and swerving
back across the snow-covered road surface. The BMW hit
them again, the Mercedes careering sideways and then, in
what seemed to be slow motion, the back tyre blew and it slid
back across the road towards metal stanchions holding up the
signpost to the airport.
Al-Sawabi was thrown forward, banging his head on the
back of the driver’s headrest, a feeling of warm blood on his
face as he struggled to regain his bearings. Suddenly, all hell
seemed to break loose. The nearside window shattered,
Ahmed’s head exploding in front of Al-Sawabi’s eyes. Blood,
brains and glass splattered the opposite window and then it
too shattered as another bullet passed through the dead driver’s
neck.
Al-Sawabi recoiled in fear as the back door was wrenched
open and a gun was thrust into his face. Rough hands ripped
at his coat, pulling him forward and then a cruel voice was
shouting, demanding the disks. Al-Sawabi was too scared to
answer. The gun lowered; he heard the deafening report and
then his own screams as he stared in disbelief at his blood-
soaked knee, the gun back in his face and hands again pawing
at his pocket and the precious disks inside. The other man
ripped at the material and then the disks were gone. Shock was
now replacing the initial pain and, as Al-Sawabi struggled to
retain consciousness, he felt the barrel of the gun being forced
into his mouth. His last thought was of his brothers in the
sand and then everything went black.
Harvey was driving back up the south side of the highway
when the first police car arrived at the scene of the accident.
The Mercedes was on fire and the police had no choice but to
keep their distance, Harvey smiling with grim satisfaction as
he saw the fuel tanks explode in his rear view mirror.

229
 ***
"What will happen if you find him?" Natasha asked from the
anonymity of the darkness.
"I don't know. I suppose we’ll take him to the American
Embassy and then spirit him back to Washington."
She rolled over and gently ran her hands through his hair.
"What about us? Are you going to walk out of my life too?"
He touched her lips with his fingers and then drew her
head down onto his chest, small arms winding around his
body and pulling him tightly towards her. He felt her
nakedness and the warmth of her breath on his chest. "I’m
afraid you’re stuck with me," he whispered, snuggling down
under the covers. As they kissed he felt her hot tears and a
welling up of love and emotion that was overpowering.
***
Ubedidi poured himself a second brandy and glanced at the
clock above the marble mantel; Al-Sawabi should be in the air.
He relaxed on the leather couch, slipped off his shoes and
wished that he too were flying back to Baghdad and a hero's
welcome. A sudden commotion outside his study pulled him
back from his thoughts, the intrusion annoying and out of
character in his private quarters. Rising, he placed his glass on
the table and crossed the room. Before he could reach the oak-
panelled door, it burst open and Frank Harvey, his gun drawn,
was framed in the opening.
Outside the Embassy, the CIA watch team was wondering
what they should do. They had followed Harvey’s BMW from
Orlanov’s house to the Iraqi Embassy, two hours later
following it again as it climbed onto the Leningrad Highway.
They knew he was tailing the Ambassador’s car and had caught
up with him as the big Mercedes slammed into the airport
sign. The Firm's driver had carried on, unable to stop without
giving himself away and had done the same as Harvey, coming
off at the second airport exit, swerving under the freeway and
driving straight back onto the south lane. They had passed the

230
Mercedes on the other side, just as the fire was taking hold and
before the arrival of the police. Initially, they had thought they
had lost him but as they cruised back towards the Moscow
lights, the sleek BMW had pulled out and overtaken them.
They had again followed it across the city to the Iraqi Embassy,
which was where they had made their mistake. Harvey had
seen the car draw in further up the street and noted that it was
parking without any lights on.
It had been easy to enter the Embassy’s compound and
quietly neutralise the young Arab on the main door. The
second Arab had been more alert and had struggled before the
knife had cut through both his life and his vocal chords.
Harvey was now standing inside the Ambassador’s study, the
door closed, his gun drawn and pointing at the older man’s
head.
"I want to know if you made any copies?" he said, speaking
softly in Russian and looking over at the computer on the
desktop.
Ubedidi's eyes flicked to the clock on the mantel above the
fire and then back to Harvey. "You’re too late; as we speak, the
package is on its way to Baghdad."
"I don't think so," Harvey sneered, pulling the disks from
his pocket. "Your colleagues had an unfortunate accident on
the way to the airport. Suffice to say, neither they nor the disks
made the check-in."
The Ambassador's legs appeared to buckle, his hand
reaching out for the corner of the leather couch. He seemed to
know that he was going to die and that there was nothing he
or anyone else could do to prevent the inevitable. Harvey
moved across to the computer, ripped the leads out of the wall,
took the bloodied knife and forced it under the box’s plastic
front and then jerked it off exposing the hard drive and the
motherboard. Using the butt of his gun, he smashed the
innards until he was certain they could never be repaired.
Satisfied, he crossed back to the door and pointed the barrel at
Ubedidi. "Any more computers?"

231
 The Ambassador shook his head wearily. "Who sent you?
Orlanov?" The tone betrayed his fatalistic resignation.
"Uncle Sam," Harvey said in English. The Iraqi was still
digesting the awful truth when the bullet slammed him back
into the couch. The second bullet was unnecessary but Harvey
prided himself in being a careful man.
He climbed over the back wall of the grounds and dropped
quietly down onto the snow-covered verge. Within minutes,
he was in a cab and making for the centre of town. It was
another half an hour before the CIA watch team realised that
Harvey would not be returning for his car.
***
Galbraith was put straight through to Fulbright’s office. He
went over the events of the night, finishing by telling the
Deputy Director that Harvey was a one-man demolition team.
Fulbright smiled, despite himself, and then made a fateful
decision. He told the Moscow Section head to call off the dogs
and to follow, not terminate Harvey.

232
Tuesday, December 4th

"H ave you seen this?" Natasha said, dropping a copy of

the local paper onto the breakfast table.
Daniels squinted at the picture and then returned to his
poached eggs. "Looks like a fire bombed building."
"It’s Orlanov’s club." She picked the paper up and began
translating. "It says here that twenty people died when fire
ripped through the Metelitsa Club. As well as destroying the
club, the fire also damaged two other buildings owned by
businessman, Dmitri Orlanov."
"Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy," Capriotti
remarked.
"The badly charred body of a NKVD man was found at the
back of the building. He had been shot twice and left in an
what appeared to be an industrial dumpster."
Daniels dabbed at egg yoke on his chin, annoyed when
Natasha pulled the napkin from his grasp and wiped it clean.
"Do they give a name?" he asked. She shook her head. "Maybe
it's your friend from the docks?"
Capriotti refilled his coffee cup and studied the picture of
the burnt-out buildings. "If it is, then Orlanov’s got more pull
than we gave him credit for. We didn’t exactly hide any clues
in Dostoyevsky’s office."
"Sounds to me like he’s got himself involved in some kind
of gang war. At least that should keep his mind off you and
Natasha." Daniels pushed his plate away and sat back from the
table. "I’m going to drop past the office and face Stevens. Jack
called earlier and said they’d cancelled his Kiev trip. He
reckons something’s up."
"You’re not going to own up on our behalf?"
"Not likely," he snorted. "I’d like to keep my pension if it’s
all the same to you. I’ll try and get back before midday."
"We’ll be leaving the hotel around twelve thirty."

233
 "Right, I’ll go and see what numb-nuts is up to."
They watched as he waddled towards the lobby. "If it is
Gouzenko, why kill him and then leave his body outside
Dmitri’s club?" Natasha asked.
"Maybe Dan’s right and Orlanov is involved in some kind of
gangland war. They used to do the same thing in Chicago during
the prohibition years. Capone’s lot would kill someone, then
dump the body outside the rival mob’s favourite restaurant. The
next night they’d find one of Capone’s men outside his
restaurant. It’s not exactly subtle but it does get the point across."
"We've never asked where Illanovitch got the disks from."
"So?"
"Would an OMON officer have access to Stasi files,
particularly now they’re in western hands?"
"But Orlanov might have, is that what you’re saying?"
"What if Gouzenko was following Illanovitch and not me?
Perhaps Orlanov knew he had the disks and was trying to
retrieve them?"
"Maybe," Capriotti mused, getting up and picking the
paper off the table. "Come on, I think it’s time we verified the
authenticity of those damn disks. We’ve been running around
like headless chickens and still don't know if they’re fact or
fiction."
"And how do we do that?"
"By asking the one person still alive who knows the truth."
She followed him to the elevators and up to their third-
floor room, watching as he placed a call to the Chronicle’s
newsroom. Five minutes later he was listening as Chad
Abrahams, the night duty subeditor, launched into a diatribe
on the Cowboys, their losing streak and then mentioned that
Jarvis was spitting nails and beginning to think he had fallen
off the edge of the world.
Capriotti told him not to worry and that he was chasing
down a story on a par with the Second Coming. Abrahams
agreed to pass on the message and then asked why he was
calling, surprised when Capriotti told him the telephone

234
number he wanted but agreeing to get onto records and chase
it down. Promising to call back in several hours, he hung up
and stretched out on the bed beside Natasha.
"An hour or two to kill and a freshly made bed to lie on;
any suggestions?"
***
"Where in the hell have you been?" Greg Stevens growled as
Daniels pushed open his office door. The local Reuters’ head
was sitting with Jack Blanchard and Catherine Whitlock at the
small conference table beside the window. In direct contrast to
the tall, good looking Blanchard, Stevens was short, round and
had begun to comb his remaining hair over a growing bald
patch, the wispy thin beard and moustache failing to
compensate for the hair loss.
Closing the door, Daniels joined the other three at the
table. "Not that it's any of your business, but I've spent the last
couple of days in Leningrad."
"I suppose you heard about the trouble at the company
house?"
"Only that you got pulled in for questioning," Daniels said,
trying to keep a straight face.
"You know nothing else?"
"Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression
I still reported to Michelson?"
"Not when you’re in my district." Stevens retorted, missing
the covert kiss Catherine blew behind his back and also the
kick Blanchard gave her beneath the table.
"How’s that wife of yours," Daniels asked, "still hankering
after the Paris job?"
Blanchard shook his head. "Perhaps we could discuss the
issues at hand." He turned and looked directly at Daniels.
"Some one or some group took out the Iraqi Ambassador last
night along with half his bloody staff."
Daniels looked suitably shocked. "Do we know who’s
involved?"

235
 "Nope. The ambassador’s car was torched near the turn-off
to Sheremetevo-2, its two occupants fried to a crisp. Earlier
this morning, Ubedidi was found in his house, a bullet in his
heart, a second in his head. Two of the embassy staff were also
dead; one with a broken neck, the other with most of his
throat missing."
"Thanks for the summary, Jack," Stevens whined unkindly,
"but I think I’ll conduct the briefing from here on in."
"Has anyone claimed it?" Daniels asked, ignoring Stevens.
"The usual crackpot organisations, although the general
consensus is Mossad’s involved somewhere."
"Makes sense, Saddam’s been mouthing off about dropping
a rain of terror on Tel Aviv and the Israelis definitely won't
want the Russians brokering a peace agreement. Anything
from Netanyahu?"
"Nothing yet, he’s still doing the rounds in Washington."
"Fine. Just pretend I’m not here," Stevens fumed.
"What about our side?" Catherine said, breaking into the
conversation. "I’ve heard a whisper there’s a shooter in town."
Daniels looked genuinely surprised by her revelation. "It
doesn’t make sense; we want this war, why risk alienating the
friendly Arabs, or the Russians for that matter?"
"Well, someone did!" Stevens said, stating the obvious and
again trying to regain control of the meeting.
"No shit, Sherlock," Daniels muttered. "What’s the buzz
from the local boys?"
Greg Stevens visibly bristled but said nothing.
"They’re staying quiet," Blanchard answered. "It would
probably suit them if it was pinned on Mossad, at least it
would get them off the hook. Something else, Saddam has
announced he’s going to release the hostages. Of course, this
might change with the attack on his Embassy."
The discussion went on for another hour before finally
breaking up and allowing Daniels to corner Catherine
Whitlock over the coffee machine. "Who gave you the info on
the shooter?" he asked, smiling as she arched an eyebrow and

236
gave him her coy, well-perfected, 'must protect my sources
look'. "I don't care whether it’s official or pillow talk," Daniels
continued. "I just need to know if it’s accurate."
"Galbraith’s number two. He’s a big jock from Idaho with
more beef than sense."
"So, it is pillow talk?" Daniels grinned.
"Like I said, more beef than sense."
Daniels shook powdered milk into his cup and stirred it
vigorously. "Did he give you a name?"
She again cocked an eyebrow but decided to play ball;
Daniels was Daniels after all and she still held him in awe.
"No, but from the way he took off it was obvious all shades
of shit were about to hit the fan. He’s been tied-up for the past
few nights…"
"You want to run that past me again?"
Before she could answer, Stevens wandered along the hall
and announced that he wanted a private word with Daniels.
Catherine smiled behind the Moscow head’s back, at the same
time pulling a melodramatic finger across her throat. Sighing
theatrically, he followed Stevens back down the hall to his
office, waiting as the younger man closed the door behind
them and crossed to the business side of the desk. Daniels took
the other chair and glanced at the photo of Greg's wife,
prominently displayed on the edge of the desk. "No kids yet?"
"Marcie feels we should wait until I get a posting nearer to
home." Stevens swivelled in his chair, finally deciding to lean
back and place his feet on the desktop. "Michelson’s been
asking questions, he wants to know what you’ve been up to."
"He will, when I’m ready to tell him."
"That’s not good enough."
"It’s going to have to be."
"I know you were in that house," Stevens blustered,
jumping up from the chair and inadvertently knocking the
picture of Marcie into the waste bin. "I can’t prove it yet but
when I do..."
"Yeah, yeah, I know, you’ll go running back to Michelson,"

237
Daniels said, getting up and moving towards the door. "You
keep pulling my chain and maybe your next posting will be
Lagos. And who knows, maybe Marcie will get to like those
well-hung young bucks." He opened the door and then turned
back towards the desk. "Something else, try learning the
rudiments of the game next time before playing with the big
boys."
Daniels walked back to the coffee machine and retrieved his
cup. Blanchard was speaking with Andrea. "Everything cool
with Greg?" he asked.
"Cool and Greg in the same sentence, now there’s one hell
of an oxymoron. Look, I’ve got to run; are you going to be in
tonight?" Blanchard nodded. "If I get a chance I’ll maybe give
you a call and explain what’s been going on." He handed the
Englishman his coffee cup and moved towards the door.
"Incidentally, tell that wife of yours I expect to see her before
I leave."
***
Capriotti was waiting nervously for the New York number to
connect. A woman finally answered and he asked if Mrs
Kennedy was at home, gave his name and told her he was
calling from Moscow and that it was very important. She
asked him to wait and then put him on hold. He waited thirty
seconds before she was back and telling him that Mrs Kennedy
was unable to take any calls. Capriotti apologised for the early
hour and reiterated the urgent nature of his request; eventually
asking if Mrs Kennedy had ever known a man called
Alexander Kerchenko. He heard the woman sigh and another
click as he was again put on hold, immediately recognising the
cultured voice that finally came onto the other end of the line.
"How can I help you?" Jackie Kennedy said, her voice
clipped and quite obviously guarded.
"I’m sorry to bother you, " Capriotti began, "but I’m
following a story here in Moscow and wondered whether you
could confirm or deny having ever known an Alexander

238
Kerchenko?" There was a long pause at the other end of the
line and he thought for a moment that the she had hung up.
When she finally spoke, the question was again clipped and
very cool. "Who is this?"
"My name’s John Capriotti. I’m a foreign correspondent for
the Houston Chronicle. It’s very important that I confirm
whether you ever met Kerchenko." The line was silent again.
"I’m sorry Mr Capriotti, I’m unable to answer your
question. I’m going to hang up now."
"Mrs Kennedy," he blurted out, trying desperately to think
of something to keep the ex-First Lady on the line. "I realise
this may have come as a shock but it really is very important.
Would it help if I told you I was working on behalf of
Alexander Kerchenko’s daughter?"
There was another long pause. "I truly am sorry, Mr
Capriotti but I’ve already told you I’m unable to confirm or
deny your story." She hesitated, as if weighing up her next
words with extreme care. "Please, convey my apologies to
Natasha."
The phone went dead. Capriotti stood staring at the
receiver, Natasha finding it hard to control her growing
impatience. "Well, what did she say?" He jumped as the phone
beside him rang. Daniels was on the other end and waiting for
them in the lobby. He told him they’d be down in a minute.
"She knew your name," he said as they descended in the
elevator. "She wouldn’t confirm or deny whether she knew
your father but she used your name." The doors opened and
they saw Daniels sitting by the door.
She gripped his arm and spun him around. "So what does
it mean?"
"It means we’re on the right track."
***
Dmitri Orlanov was sitting in his study when the call came
through. He listened, grunted once, slammed down the phone
and then swore out loud. The American was really beginning

239
to piss him off. He knew all too well the Iraqis would think he
had double-crossed them; in truth, he had. He got up and
moved through to the kitchen. The caller had gone into great
detail about the Ambassador’s car and the gruesome find at the
Embassy. There had been no name, no introduction, just the
information. Orlanov had no doubt that the voice at the other
end belonged to the CIA hit man. He was baiting him, telling
him he was closing in. Orlanov knew the game the other man
was playing, having orchestrated it himself over the
intervening years. Make the target panic, get him to make a
mistake and then pick him off at your leisure. The CIA man
wanted him to run, of that he was sure, wanted to pick him off
in the open, just like he had picked off Al-Sawabi.
He climbed the stairs to the second floor, crossed into the
front guestroom and peered through the blinds and down
onto the garden and the snow-carpeted street beyond. There
was no one about but Orlanov knew that the man stalking
him was watching the house and could have been watching
him for the past few days. He cursed himself for threatening
the CIA with the Iraqis. He should have realised how explosive
the disks were and how seriously they would take his threat.
He crossed to his own bedroom. Karina was in the shower.
He knew he would have to take the offensive and that if he sat
waiting for the other man to strike, he could lose. Grabbing
the phone, he dialled the private number in Leningrad, waited
impatiently until he was connected and then told his contact
to hack into Langley and find out just who and what he was
up against. It was time to wrest back the initiative.
***
They were sitting in the tearoom alongside the main lobby of
the Kempinsky. Daniels and Capriotti had ordered two pots of
coffee along with a selection of scones, jam and sticky cakes,
Natasha preferring to sip indifferently from a glass of diluted
orange juice. The large room was half full, most of the other
patrons as old or older than Daniels, the Kempinsky’s tearoom

240
apparently the local meeting place for the retired and affluent
elderly. Their table was beside a floor to ceiling window that
looked out onto the sweeping gardens at the side of the hotel.
They could see the curve of the river and several children
cavorting across the grounds, trying to build a snowman. Two
boys were rolling the head across the snow-covered grass.
"You’re absolutely sure she used Natasha’s name?" Daniels
had a plate of scones in front of him and was busily spreading
jam onto the first. It was the third time he had asked the
question in the past half-hour.
"I thought we’d already established that," Capriotti replied,
his mind again re-running the earlier conversation. "There was
something about her tone…"
"What?" Daniels spluttered, spraying crumbs across the
table.
"I’m not sure."
Daniels cursed, his frustration evident as he took another
bite of scone and jam.
"Maybe it’s just me and the fact I was talking with one of
the most famous women of the century." He paused, trying to
remember each word, each inflection and nuance. "You know
when you promise to keep a secret and then find a way to
speak about it without breaking that promise?"
"Damn it, John, get to the point," Daniels growled, his
frustration growing.
"I know what you mean," Natasha broke in, "it’s a girl thing.
In your heart of hearts you think you’re keeping the original
promise, but somehow still manage to convey the secret."
"Precisely; she wouldn’t come out and confirm she knew
your father but, by asking me to pass on her apologies to
‘Natasha’, she was telling me she knew him."
"Women have always been a closed book to me," Daniels
sniffed, watching as the two boys struggled to lift the large
head and place it on the even larger body. "Betty never
understood how I could have such a blind spot and still make
a living as a journalist."

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 "Maybe that’s what makes you so irresistible to the fairer
sex?"
He turned back from the window and the two boys playing
in garden. "Don't you start, your boyfriend’s bad enough when
he and Betty get together. It’s like being an outsider in your
own home."
"We’d better get going," Capriotti said, brushing Daniels'
sprayed cake crumbs from his shirt. "Are you sure about
waiting here?" The old journalist nodded. They had already
agreed that Capriotti and Natasha should go back to the
orphanage on their own.
It was well below freezing outside but the sun had made an
unaccustomed appearance and the bright light was glinting off
the Kremlin domes and spires across the river. By contrast, the
orphanage still looked bleak and foreboding, even though it
too was bathed in sunshine. As they walked hand in hand
along the path, a snowball hit Capriotti on the back of the
neck. "Little devils," he grinned, ducking as another was
thrown by the retreating boys. Natasha laughed out loud, the
tension broken as a final flurry smacked into his back.
Sliding around the corner of the building, Natasha pushed
the doorbell, the chimes ringing out from the bowels of the
old sanatorium. The main doors were slightly ajar and
Capriotti entered the small reception area. They could see a
face peering out through the thickened glass of the inside door.
It was Nikolai; his lips pulled back, his teeth bared. "He looks
in pain," Natasha whispered. They waited several more
minutes and then a slim woman with greying hair opened the
door and instructed Nikolai to remain inside. He seemed
agitated and suddenly began banging his head against the
toughened glass. The woman told him to behave and quickly
closed the door behind her.
"Sorry about that, can I help you?"
"I was here yesterday, I’m looking for Anna."
She smiled. "I’m Anna, you must be Miss Kerchenko?
Maria told me you might come back. How can I help you?"

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 Capriotti could only guess at what the two women were
talking about. He caught the other woman’s name and
correctly surmised they had found the right person. She was in
her middle to late fifties and still a good-looking woman. Her
face was animated, with very few lines and Capriotti guessed
she would once have been very attractive indeed.
"Is there somewhere we can talk in private?" Natasha
asked.
"I was about to take Nikolai for a walk, I’m afraid that’s
why he’s so excited. If you wish, we can talk out in the
garden."
Natasha nodded her agreement and the woman asked her
to wait whilst she fetched Nikolai’s coat. Five minutes later,
they were walking along the riverbank; Nikolai skipping on
ahead of them before turning and running back to circle Anna
and then off again. He reminded Capriotti of a hyperactive
five-year-old.
"Maria said you’ve worked here for nearly thirty years."
"It’s closer to thirty-five," Anna said. "I came here straight
from school. It was a private sanatorium back then but they
closed it down after General Secretary Brezhnev came to
power. It was re-opened some time later to help mentally
disturbed children, which perhaps explains why the locals still
think of us as an orphanage. As you can see," she continued,
pointing towards the horse galloping antics of Nikolai, "some
of them have never grown up."
"I’m trying to trace my father and think he may have stayed
here for a short time in the summer of nineteen sixty-one."
"I’m sorry, but I don’t recall anyone called Kerchenko.
Maria mentioned your family name and that you were trying
to find a lost relative. I didn’t realise it was your father,
though."
"Are you sure you don’t remember him?" Natasha pressed,
trying hard to hide her growing disappointment. "I’ve a
picture here, maybe it will jog your memory." She pulled out
the photograph of her parents and showed it to the other

243
woman. Anna studied it carefully and then shook her head,
calling out as Nikolai slipped near the edge of the steep
riverbank. He picked himself up, smiled and began running
around again.
"I’m sorry, Miss Kerchenko, I don't think I can help you."
Capriotti had watched Natasha show Anna the picture and
seen the shake of her head. He closed up behind them and told
Natasha to show her the other photograph. Nodding in
agreement, she pulled the envelope out of her pocket and
handed the faded black and white photo to the nurse. The
shock on her face was unmistakable.
"Where did you get this?" she glared, her face suddenly
hard. She turned it over and read the name and date.
Capriotti stepped forward, his finger tapping the picture.
"Do you know him?"
"You’re an American," Anna replied in fluent English and
with no trace of an accent.
"You recognise him, don't you, Anna?" Capriotti's tone was
soft but firm.
Before she could say anything, there was a frightened cry
and then a loud splash. Anna screamed and began running
towards the river. The bank sloped steeply towards the water’s
edge where Nikolai had slipped and fallen down the snow and
leaf covered incline and into the water. His coat was caught on
an overhanging branch and he was flailing desperately, his eyes
filled with terror. Anna screamed again as she struggled down
to the water’s edge. She tried to reach the frightened Nikolai
but panic had set in and he was pulling frantically at his
snagged coat. Suddenly, the branch snapped and the boy
disappeared under the fast moving water.
Capriotti ran headlong down the slope and straight into the
river. The cold hit him like a hammer; his breath coming in
gasps as his body temperature began to plummet. He put his
feet down but there was no bottom, the sheer drop of the bank
carrying on under the water. He dived beneath the surface but
everything was inky black. His limbs were already becoming

244
numb and leaden, his breath hard to find. The current tugged
and eddied, pulling him along the edge of the bank. He tried
to grab the overhanging branches but they were out of his
reach, panic beginning to take hold as he continued to thrash
out with arms and legs. Something brushed against his calf
and, taking another deep breath, he again sank beneath the
surface but this time found and grabbed hold of the boy’s
outstretched arms. He struggled to pull Nikolai’s head above
the water, the semi-conscious boy’s anorak acting like a
buoyancy aid and helping to keep him afloat.
Natasha had found a broken branch and was now running
along the top of the bank. Finding a break in the
undergrowth, she worked her way down to the river’s edge and
hung it out into the water. Capriotti was finding it harder to
support Nikolai's limp head, his own limbs beginning to feel
like deadened lumps of burning lead. He was gulping in
mouthfuls of dirty water and could sense his mind becoming
disoriented. He heard her shout and saw the branch at the last
minute, his legs thrashing again and trying to get them back
to the bank and relative safety. The current was becoming
stronger and he was almost past the branch when it finally
came within reach. His right hand grabbed and took hold and
almost pulled Natasha into the water. She leant back, digging
the heels of her boots into the loosely packed snow. Anna
joined her and together they slowly pulled the branch back to
the bank.
Capriotti managed to get one hand onto the side and grab
hold of the long grass pushing through the snow. Using his last
remaining strength, he pulled himself half way out of the
water and then dragged Nikolai up behind him. Natasha and
Anna grabbed the boy’s arms and, with Capriotti’s failing help,
they dragged and pulled him onto the bank. Capriotti, close
to exhaustion himself, was by now shivering uncontrollably
and could feel nothing below his waist.
Natasha left Nikolai and pulled at Capriotti’s arms. Ever so
slowly, he edged himself out of the water and onto the bank.

245
He finally rolled over, Natasha continuing to pull him by the
arms until he was completely out of the freezing water. He lay
there exhausted. Anna was still crying and Natasha pushed her
roughly away and turned Nikolai over on his side opened his
mouth and began pummelling his back. Dirty brown water
dribbled between his lips and then he began to cough.
Capriotti pulled himself onto his knees and crawled over to
where the boy was lying.
"We need to get him inside, hurry, Anna, go and get help."
His whole body seemed to be shutting down and he knew,
without immediate warmth, he would begin to go into
hypothermic shock. It seemed like forever before three white-
coated men came running across the grass and dragged both
him and Nikolai to the top of the bank. Anna wrapped the
boy in blankets and then watched as the men carried him
toward the building. Taking the remaining blanket, she
wrapped it around Capriotti's shoulders. "Can you walk?"
"With difficulty," he said, his teeth chattering. Natasha
took one side, Anna the other and they dragged him bodily
over to the building, through the open doors and into the
warmth of the reception area. Two of the men returned and
helped him into a large open room with metal-framed beds
down either side. They took him into a small cubicle at the far
end and stripped off his clothes. Another door led into a
shower room and they turned on the communal faucet and
helped him under the hot water. He gasped out loud as the
feelings began to slowly return to his numb body, crying out
in pain as the blood began to reach his dilated capillaries. He
stood under the shower for a full fifteen minutes until he
could move and feel his feet again. One of the orderlies gave
him a towel and a pair of thick pyjamas. Once dressed, they
wrapped him in an old dressing gown and showed him
through to the large kitchen where Anna had made a jug of
steaming hot chocolate. She sat him down at a dark coloured
wooden table and poured out some of the thick liquid. His
hands were still shaking violently and he spilt half the contents

246
before they reached his mouth. Natasha took the cup and held
it to his lips, watching as he gulped at the remaining liquid, his
teeth still chattering.
"God, but that was cold. How’s the boy?"
Anna was still tearful, the shock of what might have
happened beginning to sink in. "The doctors think he’ll be
fine, I don’t know how I can ever thank you."
"My hero." Natasha beamed, putting down the cup and
giving Capriotti a warm hug.
"If it hadn’t been for you and that branch, I’d be a dead
hero."
Shakily, Anna refilled the empty cup. She was crying again
and Natasha put her arm around the older woman’s shoulders.
"I’m sorry," she sobbed, large tears streaking her cheeks. "You
see," she wiped a shaking hand across her eyes, "the
boy...Nikolai…he's my son. I don't know what I’d do if I lost
him."
Natasha pulled the sobbing women closer, at the same time
glancing over at Capriotti. "I’m sure he’ll be fine, would you
like us to call someone, his father, perhaps?"
"You don't understand," she cried. "The man in the picture
is his father."
***
It was nearly two hours later when they finally got back to the
hotel. Daniels was sitting at the same window seat, an array of
empty cake plates scattered around the table.
"I thought you’d forgotten me, how did you get on?"
Capriotti explained the events of the last few hours. The
staff had washed and dried his soaking wet clothes and given
them both something to eat. "What about Kennedy?" Daniels
asked, not as concerned with Capriotti’s plight as the younger
man would have liked.
"He was definitely here," Capriotti said, still shivering. "You
were also right about Kerchenko being brought here several days
before the switch. Anna thinks she remembers seeing him with

247
Khrushchev and several others around the time the picture was
taken. She doesn’t remember Natasha’s mother but…"
"What about our man?" Daniels' persisted, as single-
minded as ever.
"Arrived here several weeks later," Capriotti said. "He was
heavily sedated and no one was allowed in his room except
Anna and one of the doctors. They kept him locked up for
months but then slowly relaxed the regime, allowing him to
wander around the closed building and then to take supervised
walks outside. As they reduced the medication he slowly
became more lucid. Anna spoke passable English even then
and, over the weeks and months as she tried to teach him
Russian, they began to strike up a personal relationship."
"Personal?"
"I guess it’s true what they say about a leopard and its spots.
He got her pregnant."
"Kennedy has a Russian kid?" Daniels exclaimed, shocked
by the revelation.
"He’s nearly thirty but with a mental age of around five or
six," Natasha said. "Anna was told to leave the sanatorium when
they found out but apparently Kennedy became clinically
depressed and so after the birth she was ordered to return."
"It was the son I pulled out of the water."
Daniels leaned forward and grabbed the last cake. "He
probably gets the river thing from his Uncle Teddy."
"Anna’s a beautiful woman," Natasha continued, missing
the aside. "It’s not hard to see why it could have happened. She
was young and Kennedy was..."
"Kennedy," Daniels agreed.
"You’re not wrong there," Capriotti said, shivering again.
"She found out later he’d been having it away with two other
nurses and one of them also became pregnant."
"Jesus H. Christ, the man’s a walking sperm donor."
Daniels said, his words seeming to hang in the air, no one
speaking as they digested the enormity of the situation.
Natasha looked uncomfortable and absently smoothed her

248
wrinkled skirt. "Anyway," she went on, "Anna left the
sanatorium a year or so after that. Her mother was ill and she
was called home to look after her. After she died, Anna again
returned but Kennedy by then had withdrawn into himself
and was ignoring everyone. He took no interest in Nikolai and
even less in Anna. She remembers thinking at the time his
mind might have gone."
"I’m not surprised," Daniels interrupted. "One minute he’s
the most powerful man in the world, the next he’s a prisoner
in a Russian nut house. More to the point, does she know
where he is now?"
"That’s the funny thing," Capriotti said, "Anna told us that
after she returned, the doctors seemed to lose interest in him.
He was allowed to wander around the grounds and come and
go as he pleased. During the summer months, he helped out
in the garden and one day he disappeared for several weeks and
then mysteriously turned up again, ready for work. After that,
he would come and go as he pleased. She wouldn’t see him for
weeks on end and then he would suddenly reappear."
Daniels noisily licked the last remaining jam off his podgy
fingers. "Strange," he muttered. "How many years ago was this?"
"Anna’s not sure, but she definitely remembers the day of
the assassination and the devastating effect it had on Kennedy
when they told him. I think it was after that he began to
withdrew into himself."
"I don’t blame him, he must have known he could never go
home."
"She gave us one clue," Natasha said. "Eight or nine years
ago he developed pneumonia and was admitted to the
Sheremetev hospital. He spent four weeks there before being
released. She said that every five or six months after that he
had to go back in for a check up."
"The game’s afoot then," Daniels chortled, pulling his wide
girth from the chair and clapping his friend on the back.
"Come on Cappy, let’s get you back to the hotel and into a
warm bed."

249
 ***
Fulbright was alone in his office. The duty officer had called
two hours earlier and suggested he come down to the
basement and listen to some tapes. He had begun to object but
the other man had been insistent.
The office door was now closed and locked, his secretary
under strict instructions not to disturb him, no matter who it
was. The tape cassette was on his desk. He picked it up and
spun it around in his hand. He had already run a thorough
check on John Capriotti and knew he worked for the Houston
Chronicle and that he was a second-rate foreign correspondent
with a drinking problem. The FBI file was fairly mundane,
although it did note that his grandfather was Giovanni
Capriotti, a well-known post-war mobster. He picked up the
Chronicle’s glossy black and white publicity photograph and
looked at the smiling thirty-year-old staring back at him; it
was twenty odd years out of date and showed him with
shoulder length hair, wide patterned shirt lapels and a kipper
tie. The file had also mentioned a connection between
Capriotti and Jimmy Delaney. Fulbright remembered Delaney
and the trouble he had stirred up in the months after the
assassination. He also remembered the botched job Harvey
had made of the man’s wife.
He placed the tape in the small recorder and played it
again. The woman was smart, real smart, and he cursed her
and the whole Kennedy clan. Harvey had been right; they
should have taken the bitch out as well. She hadn’t put a foot
wrong, neither confirming nor denying Kerchenko’s existence,
pausing in all the right places and sounding totally
noncommittal - noncommittal, that was, until the reference to
Kerchenko’s daughter.
Leaning back in his chair, his thoughts returned to the
bright November afternoon and the meeting he and Harvey
had with the beautiful Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. She had
appeared stunned and still in shock but her thoughts were for
Kerchenko and not the husband she had lost. That little snake

250
Gromyko had been right; no one could have anticipated
America's First Lady would fall in love with a Russian plant or
how deeply she would eventually fall. He had explained to
them in Vancouver how Kerchenko had been trained to win
over Kennedy's wife, but no one had foreseen, after years of
sexual humiliation, that Alexander would be the embodiment
of the man she once thought she had married. He had been
trained to be persuasive and attentive and to fulfil both her
sexual and emotional needs but neither his Russian masters,
nor Kerchenko himself, ever considered that he might fall in
love with the one woman who held his life in her hands. The
Russian psychiatrists had programmed him to believe he was
Kennedy, but even they hadn’t expected their patient to so
easily fall under the spell of one of the world’s most beguiling
and beautiful women.
Fulbright played the tape again, listening for any inference,
any nuance that might allow him to break down her New York
apartment door and confront her, finally ripping the tape out
of the machine and throwing it across his office. She knew, just
as he did, that there was nothing they could do without
admitting the awful truth. Picking up the telephone, he told
his secretary to book him on the first flight to Moscow.
***
Orlanov had spent most of the day working out his plan of
action. The file on Frank Harvey had still not arrived but it
didn’t really matter; Orlanov knew his type and what he was
capable of. The man was a trained killer and there were three
things Orlanov knew for sure. Harvey would make certain of
the kill, make certain he retrieved the disks and make certain
that he had an escape route. Orlanov had considered whom
Fulbright would send and what the man’s profile would be and
felt sure he would be in his mid to late fifties. He had made
this assumption because Fulbright would want to keep the
existence of the disks and the doppelganger a closed secret. To
do this he would have to send a shooter whom he could trust

251
and that meant a man who had been closely involved in the
original operation.
In truth, he would have preferred to come up against a
younger man because, and to survive this long, Harvey would
have already demonstrated his ability to plan and execute a hit.
He only had to look at the unfortunate demise of Al-Sawabi
and Ubedidi to underline this thought process. Although the
OMON had not yet released the names of the victims or
confirmed how they had died, Orlanov knew they would both
have bullets in them. Harvey was quite obviously a true
professional, the fire used to cover his escape, nothing else. He
could have torched the Embassy but instead had slipped out as
quietly as he slipped in. He had killed only where necessary,
the operation surgically carried out with no obvious
connection between the attack on the warehouse and the
sudden demise of the Iraqis.
Orlanov felt fairly sure that the shooter would continue to use
the same basic template, both men knowing the OMON would
already have Mafia war and gangland retaliation at the top of
their motive list. Another fire, particularly at his house, would
simply confirm this supposition and again allow the assassin time
to escape. Hit him in the car or in a restaurant and the American
could not be certain he had destroyed all the disks.
Orlanov was beginning to feel better. He could take
Fulbright's man out and rid himself of the finger of fear that
seemed to hang constantly above his head.
***
Catherine Whitlock stirred, stretched over and turned on the
small bedside light. The man beside her was sound asleep. He
was lying on his back, the covers pushed away and revealing the
full beauty of his body. She traced a manicured nail across his
pecs and down past the flat stomach and abs. He mumbled and
turned onto his side as she allowed her hand to travel further
down. He might not be one of the brightest men the CIA had
ever recruited but she felt sure he would qualify as the best

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endowed. She had always viewed sex as a legitimate tool of the
trade; it had brought her the Reuters’ job and, if she played her
cards right, would continue to move her up the career ladder.
She slipped from under the covers and quickly dressed. The
man groaned again and rolled onto his back. Their post-coital
propensity for sleep had always amazed her. They were all the
same: talk, bed, sex and sleep. Getting men into bed had never
been a problem. Getting them to talk had taken practice but
experience had taught her that their desire to talk was directly
proportionate to their desire to get laid. Hold out long enough
and they would say almost anything to get between her firm
white thighs. Once there, she made sure the wait had been
worth it. She knew she was good. No, she knew she was the
best. Information came and went, its importance ebbing and
flowing as outside events unfolded. She didn’t pretend to be
something she was not. They all knew that she was a journalist
and that anything disclosed across the pillow was fair game.
Her body kept them both happy and the information divulged
ensured her continuing upward climb.
She struggled into her black boots and quietly pulled the
covers across the sleeping agent. He mumbled something but
she was already closing the bedroom door and moving
through the small apartment.
She ordered a cab and watched from the window as the
dark blue Volga pulled up outside the building. Within
minutes, she was on the sidewalk and telling the driver to take
her to the Belgrade Hotel. He muttered unhappily about the
short run he was being offered but was suitably mollified when
she opened her purse and pressed some large denomination
rubles into his hand. He smiled admiringly, glancing in the
mirror at the stunning woman sitting impassively on his back
seat. The smile would have waned and died had he seen the
can of mace nestling in her open handbag. Catherine
Whitlock was no pushover and it would not be the first time
a hapless cab driver had tried his luck, only to be sent home to
his wife in an ambulance.

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 He dropped her off ten minutes later, the mace again
hidden at the bottom of the bag. She waved at the doorman
and took the elevator to the fourth floor and her long-term
room; Stevens had objected strenuously but Michelson had
ensured his complaints were ignored. She sat down on the bed
and pulled the small recorder from her bag. Daniels could now
have the name of the shooter.
***
Frank Harvey had spent the day preparing his plan of attack.
Like Orlanov, he had concluded that he would have to hit the
house and make sure the disks and any copies were destroyed.
Unlike Orlanov, he did not think it was necessary to hit the
Russian whilst he was in the house.
He was watching the main gates from across the road. The
house opposite had a modest summer cottage at the bottom of
a large garden and several days earlier he had broken in and
hidden in the lined loft space above the two main rooms. A
small porthole window allowed him to watch the gates and the
short drive up to the front door. He had seen the driver come
and go, along with a statuesque blonde girl. Orlanov had been
conspicuous by his absence, Harvey hoping the Russian was
not going to remain cooped up in the building.
During the long day, his thoughts had gone back to the
previous night and the other car outside the Iraqi Embassy.
Something about it bothered him. He couldn’t place his finger
on it but knew if he left it alone for long enough, it would
eventually come to him.
***
Fulbright’s secretary had booked her boss on Concorde. He
was now sitting in the First Class lounge at Heathrow’s
Terminal Four, a large gin and tonic on the table, his mind
wondering how John McCone would have handled the
situation.

254
Wednesday, December 5th

D aniels was surprised to see Catherine Whitlock sitting in

the hotel dining room. She certainly was a stunningly
beautiful woman, Michelson having spoken at great length
about the things she could do with her tongue, something
Daniels didn’t doubt for a minute.
"Late night or early morning?" he said squeezing into the
bench seat across from her. She looked up and returned his
smile, her green eyes sparkling mischievously.
"A bit of both." She called over the waiter and asked for
another cup.
Daniels ordered two boiled eggs and then explained that
even a Russian chef should be able to get that right. "I don't
suppose this is a social visit?" he added, once the waiter had
poured the coffee and retired to the kitchen.
Her eyes rolled in mock surprise. "Dan Daniels, what
would your wife say if she could read those thoughts?"
"She’d no doubt be impressed I can still react to the sensual
charms of a beautiful woman."
Catherine leaned over and kissed his bristly cheek. "I’ve got
a name for you, you old flatterer."
"Name?"
"The shooter."
"Don’t tell me how you got it, I’m jealous enough as it is
without hearing someone else’s pillow talk."
The waiter returned and topped up his cup, Daniels
leaning back as a rack of toast and a second pot of jam was
placed on the table.
"Frank Harvey" she said, her voice suddenly low and
conspiratorial. "I ran a check when I got back to the hotel;
we’ve nothing on him. I also called a friend at the Bureau…"
"And they’ve nothing either?" Daniels interrupted.
She smiled endearingly, her eyes suddenly alert and

255
narrowing. "You’re working on something, aren’t you, Dan,
and I’ve a feeling it’s linked to that dead cop in the company
house?"
He looked at her, a knurled hand rubbing the bristles on his
unshaven chin. "I’ll be real disappointed if Stevens sent you
over here to pump me."
Her eyes flashed in mock anger. "That sorry excuse for a
biped wouldn’t know a story if it fell on him," she sneered with
exaggerated feeling. "You, on the other hand, have a nose for
a story. Although, whether I’d consider pumping you is
another matter?"
Daniels chuckled as the waiter returned with the eggs.
"And just when I thought my luck had changed," he said,
picking up the knife and carefully slicing through the top of
the eggshell. "Damn them to hell, did you hear me ask for egg
and slime?" he yelled, pushing the plate of runny mucus across
the table, the waiter already back in the kitchen and out of
earshot. Before Catherine could return to the subject at hand,
Capriotti strode into the dining room. Daniels waved him
over.
"Well, hello again, I had hoped you might have called
before now." Her voice was warm and thick like dark treacle,
her hand extended, the smile genuine and very inviting.
"Too late, the lad’s spoken for," Daniels smirked and then
added, "Of course, I wasn’t privy to what you got up to on the
plane over here."
She shot him a venomous look. "Contrary to what you may
have heard, I don't normally go in for mile-high gymnastics."
Her hooded eyes momentarily flicked across to Capriotti.
"Then again, I do sometimes make exceptions."
"You never did with me," Daniels replied, with more
feeling than he should have.
Capriotti smiled, realising the two colleagues enjoyed these
sparring sessions. "Perhaps that’s the downside with travelling
in First, you tend to miss out on all the fun."
"So it would seem."

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 "Can I assume you two are working together?" she asked,
trying to pull them back to the subject in question.
"Beautiful and cunning; what a delicious combination."
"Better that than chauvinistic and patronising like one old
fart I could mention."
"Cut to the quick, why don’t you?" Daniels said, feigning a
well-rehearsed hurt look. "You’d better watch this one, she has
little boys like us for breakfast."
As he spoke, Natasha crossed the room and sat down beside
Capriotti.
"Ah, the competition," Catherine sighed under her breath
and then introduced herself with a practised smile, her eyes
narrowing perceptibly as Natasha placed a protective hand on
top of Capriotti’s.
Daniels shook his head. "Subtlety was never one of
Catherine’s stronger points."
"You do surprise me," Capriotti replied lightly, his eyes
falling onto her attractively filled blouse.
Natasha frowned, noticing the direction of his look.
"Don’t worry, I can take a hint, even if you two can't." She
rose and collected her bag from the floor. "When you win the
Pulitzer, I trust you’ll remember who provided some of the
information."
The old journalist struggled to his feet and took her hand.
"I owe you one."
"Not in your wettest dream, Daniels." She laughed aloud,
leaning forward and kissing his cheek and then looked directly
at Capriotti. "You can always get hold of me at the office."
Natasha squeezed sharp nails into his hand as Catherine
turned and walked gracefully across the dining room.
"That’s one dangerous woman," he remarked.
Daniels was still watching Catherine's long legs as they
disappeared towards the door. "And how," he sighed,
returning his attention to the table. "She also managed to get
hold of the shooter’s name."
"And you still think there might be a connection?"

257
 "Is it coincidence that days after the disks turn up there’s a
CIA shooter in Moscow?" He paused as the waiter arrived with
two more cups. "More importantly, how do we track down
golden boy?" He waited until the man had cleared away the
untouched eggs and returned to the kitchen. "Let’s face it, he’s
not going to be listed in the local phonebook under ‘K’ for
Kennedy!"
"How about Andre Pasternak?" Natasha's tone was clipped
and still smarting from the lingering look Catherine had
casually thrown Capriotti. She removed an old medical card
from her bag and placed it on the table. "Anna slipped it into
my hand before we left."
Daniels picked up the card and studied the name before
handing it across to Capriotti. Natasha's arms were crossed,
her body language that of a woman who's territory had just
been violated.
"Don't worry about Catherine, she's all mouth, nothing
else."
"That's exactly what I'm worried about!" Natasha snapped,
snatching the card back and returning it to her bag.
"Ouch!" Daniels said, both men wondering if the angry
women across the table had meant what they thought she
meant.
***
The Sheremetev hospital was a huge building that looked more
like a prison than a place where sick people recuperated. The
stone blocks were made from hand chiselled granite, the
windows small and seemingly out of place with the rest of the
immense structure. The architect appeared to have had
simplicity and functionality as his main blueprint, the finished
design little more than a large semi-circle with two square ends.
In the middle of this half circle was a snow-filled fountain and a
vast car-parking space. Capriotti guessed that the car park alone
would have accommodated a dozen football pitches. He counted
the floors. There were ten in all. "Big building," he whistled.

258
 The cab dropped them off at the entrance. "The People’s
Hospital," Natasha said, paying the driver. "Stalin
commissioned it in the early fifties, supposedly to show
Moscow and its citizens that communism really cared."
Daniels looked up at the imposing edifice towering in front
of them. "Damn impressive place to die," he murmured.
"How the hell are we going to locate our boy in there?"
"We find the records department. Communism might not
have many virtues, but we do know how to keep track of our
citizens."
"If it’s anything like the States, they’re not going to just
hand over the file," Capriotti said, holding open the glass door
and then following them into the imposing reception area.
Across on the far wall was a large board that detailed the names
of the wards, their specialities and the other functions handled
by the massive institution.
Natasha stared up at the board. "Records are up on the
eighth floor; do we know how we’re going to do this?"
Daniels pulled two leather wallets from his inside coat
pocket. "These might help." He handed one to Capriotti. "I’d
a feeling they might come in useful."
"You sly old fox," Capriotti said, staring down at
Illanovitch’s OMON identity card. "A cop just has to dangle
one of these under my nose and I go weak at the knees before
losing all bladder control."
"They should certainly work in a police state, then," Daniels
suggested, as they found the bank of elevators and took the first
available to the eighth floor. They decided on the way up that
the two men would flash their respective cards and let Natasha
do the talking. The elevator doors opened and she asked a
passing white-coated intern for directions to records. The man
pointed down the hall and told her to turn right at the end and
follow the signs, Daniels already out of breath and complaining
by the time they reached the end of the corridor. "They should
provide golf carts for this place," he wheezed as she pushed him
through the swing doors and into another huge room.

259
 Steel shelving rose from the floor to the ceiling and went all
the way to the back of the long room. There were multiple
banks of shelves, the dusty files stacked in alphabetical order.
A small man with thick glasses wandered over to the counter
and irritably asked them what they wanted. Capriotti and
Daniels produced the identity cards and pushed them
forcefully under his nose, the swaggering demeanour
immediately replaced by a look of genuine concern, this not a
records clerk used to visits from the OMON and most
definitely not the NKVD.
Natasha’s tone was harsh and to the point. She wanted to
see all the files on Andre Pasternak. The little man scurried
among the shelves and came back with two files. She
demanded to know if these were the only files relating to
Pasternak, adding that her superior would not be pleased if he
lied to them. He disappeared again, eventually returning with
a third folder and explaining that certain files had special
categories and were therefore kept apart from the rest.
She opened all three folders on the counter and cross-
checked the dates of birth. The first was a boy of eighteen, the
second a man in his early fifties. The special category file had
a different colour band across the front page and contained the
results of chest x-rays, drugs dispensed and the date of the last
visit. She turned to the two men standing silently beside her,
the clerk having already scurried away to the back of the room
and the sanctuary of his shelving. "This is the only one that
fits," she whispered. "See, it says here that he was transferred
by ambulance from the Kempinsky sanatorium."
"Can we take it with us?" Capriotti murmured quietly.
Natasha called the clerk back over and told him she would
need to hold onto the special file so as to confirm the probity
of the medical details. For a split second, he seemed to
consider her demand until Daniels leaned forward and banged
a meaty fist onto the metal counter top, which dispelled any
lingering thoughts of defiance. Leaning down beneath the
counter, he produced a dog-eared receipt book and tentatively

260
proffered it towards his scowling nemesis. She scribbled
something illegible at the bottom and then told him the file
would be returned in due course, adding that if they found
any discrepancies, no matter how small or insignificant, he
would be held personally accountable. The little man was close
to tears as she abruptly turned on her heel and pushed between
Daniels and Capriotti.
They were outside the front entrance when Daniels finally
spoke. "Someone missed her true vocation, you even had me
beginning to believe."
A battered cab pulled up and dropped off its fare, Natasha
jumping into the back and signalling the other two to get in.
Once out of the hospital grounds, she directed the driver to
the hotel.
"Beautiful and assertive," Daniels sighed appreciatively.
"What’s the file say?"
Natasha held a quietening finger to her lips and instead
flicked through the pages, her two companions sitting in
frustrated silence as she continued to read through the notes.
They were almost back at the hotel when she finally spoke
again. "It’s definitely the right Pasternak. His last check-up was
September eighty-nine when the doctors suspected he was in
the early stages of a bronchial carcinoma. He also has a mild
case of angina, possibly brought on by anxiety attacks."
"More likely too many demanding women," Daniels
snorted.
"Here it is," she exclaimed, pulling a page out of the file.
"Novye Cheremushki."
"What’s that, when it’s at home?"
"His last known address."
***
Galbraith was surprised. It was not like the Deputy Director to
arrive unannounced. They were sitting in his small office at
the back of the American Embassy. Fulbright looked tired, his
face grey, the eyes deep set and bloodshot. He waited until his

261
secretary poured the coffee and had quietly closed the door
behind her.
"Has this got something to do with Harvey?" Galbraith
asked, dipping a wheat biscuit into the hot liquid.
"Have we picked up his trail again?"
"Not since the fracas the other night. Incidentally, he left
another body in the trunk of a cab. The OMON found it
outside the Embassy after the man’s wife reported both the car
and her husband missing. Someone should tell him the
Russian authorities get pretty pissed off when we take down
one of their own."
"Have we got people watching Orlanov’s house?" the
Deputy Director retorted.
"Two teams, one at either end of his street. If Harvey is
there, he’s holed up." Galbraith leaned over the desk. "Can
you at least tell me if this is personal or company business?"
Fulbright shifted his weight in the leather chair. He looked
uncomfortable and ill at ease. "Let’s just say Harvey’s actions
might do more harm than good."
"No shit!" the younger man exclaimed. "He single-
handedly wiped out half of the Iraqi’s Moscow delegation. We
think the man in the back of the Mercedes was Colonel Al-
Sawabi, head of their intelligence section, not that there’s been
any formal identification. The corpse was apparently little
more than wet ash and a few bones. The driver was probably
Ubedidi’s personal aide. Do you think Harvey was after the
Ambassador and got the wrong man?"
"All I can tell you is that Orlanov made a threat to national
security which may have involved the passing of information
to the Iraqis."
"So why the sudden termination notice on Harvey?"
"Sorry, that’s classified. Suffice to say the rules continue to
change."
"What’s new?" Galbraith said, standing up and crossing the
room to the window. He looked out over the quadrangle and
towards the American Ambassador’s private residence on the

262
other side. "I can tell you right now, my men weren’t keen to
take down one of their own, particularly when that someone’s
‘Teflon Frankie’."
Fulbright placed his cup on the desk in front of him, sat
back in the chair and cracked his knuckles loudly. "You either
follow my orders to the letter or I’ll find someone who can; do
I make myself clear?"
"Crystal," Galbraith replied, startled by the venom in the
other man’s tone.
***
"I don’t see what’s wrong with taking a cab," Daniels
complained. They were standing on the Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya
platform, waiting for the underground train.
"Unlike a cabbie, the train driver is hardly likely to
remember individual passengers or where they got off."
"It’s probably not him, anyway," Daniels moaned,
stamping his feet and trying to get some warmth back into his
stiff body. The train finally pulled alongside the platform and
they boarded a half-empty carriage. "How long?" The question
this time was directed towards Natasha.
"Ten, fifteen minutes. Novke Cheremushki is southwest of
here, what you would call the suburbs."
"Has no one mentioned I’m used to travelling in style?" he
grumbled, blowing on cold hands. "Why don't Russian trains
have first class?"
"I’m surprised Betty didn’t leave you years ago; do you
always moan with such celerity?"
"It’s one of my most endearing qualities," he replied,
pulling his gloves back on
Natasha and Capriotti were sitting opposite him on a hard
wooden seat, the Pasternak file lying open on her lap. "I’ve a
feeling he lives in one of the new apartment complexes," she
said. "It should be quite close to the Metro."
"At least that’s something."
"Any ideas what we’re going to do, if it is him?" Capriotti

263
said to no one in particular and ignoring Daniels caustic
remarks.
"If I were you, I’d want to keep my girlfriend out of his
clutches. In fact, we should have probably brought the
lascivious Catherine along; she and Kennedy would get on like
a house on fire!" He smiled, pleased with the resulting grimace
that crossed Natasha’s face.
The train rumbled on through the underground maze of
tunnels, Capriotti feeling the excitement building inside him. It
didn’t matter that Kennedy was not the man portrayed in the
books and on film. He was still Kennedy and, as such, was
arguably the most famous person of the twentieth century. "Next
station," Natasha said, glancing up at the map above their heads.
Capriotti looked at her from the corner of his eye and
wondered what would happen, once this was over. They had
been living from moment to moment and now that it might
be ending, he would have to sit down and work out his, and
hopefully her, future. He had not lied in bed about wanting
her to become a part of his life. She was everything he desired
in a woman, and more. He had thought himself too much of
a cynic to believe in love but the last few days had begun to
change him. He cast his mind back to the night in her
apartment and the anger and depth of feeling her injuries had
engendered within him. He had little doubt he would have
killed Orlanov had he walked into her bedroom. He shivered.
The woman beside him had found feelings he had long
thought buried forever. She squeezed his hand and he turned
and looked directly into her beautiful blue eyes.
"Are you okay?" she whispered, resting her head on his
shoulder.
"Thinking about us and what the future might hold."
"Keep that thought warm, I’m not ready to lose you."
The train began decelerating and he helped her up and
moved towards the door as the brakes took hold and they
screeched to a stop alongside the platform. The doors opened
and a blast of cold air hit them.

264
 "Waiting for an invitation?" Capriotti asked, looking back
towards his friend.
"Lead on, Mon Capitain."
The escalator was broken and Daniels moaned and
complained all the way to the top. They waited whilst he
caught his breath.
"They can get a man into space," he gasped, "but try to get
one to the top of an escalator…"
Natasha checked her map and then gripped Capriotti's
gloved hand. "I think it’s down there to the right; we’re
looking for the Lenin Apartments."
"That’s original," Daniels muttered, ignoring the scathing
look Natasha gave him.
"Don’t worry, it takes time to come to grips with the
Daniels’ sense of humour," Capriotti said, surprised by the
intensity of her glare.
"And don’t we all know it. Come on, it can’t be that far."
Capriotti reassuringly squeezed her hand as they slid out
onto the street. It was snowing again and Daniels opened his
mouth to make another comment but then thought better of it,
instead following behind and muttering to himself. The traffic
was muted, car tyres swishing silently over the snow-covered
roads. On the opposite side of the street was a row of municipal
housing and, further down, some small shops. They continued
walking for several hundred yards until they came to a junction.
"There!" Natasha was pointing towards a large, drab
looking brick building on the other side. "The Lenin
Apartments."
They crossed the junction and entered a small, empty car
park. The building’s main door was off the latch and slightly
ajar. The bleak brick reception area had a set of concrete stairs
and a single elevator, Daniels not surprised when they
discovered it was out of order.
"I suppose he’s on the top floor?" he moaned.
"Second." She took his arm and directed him firmly across
to the foot of the stairwell.

265
 They climbed the stairs to the next floor and found a
landing and a long corridor. It was dimly lit, with a light at
either end. The nearer of the two lights was broken, pieces of
the smashed bulb lying on the floor. Natasha counted the
doors until they came to one halfway down the brick-walled
corridor. "It’s this one," she said, closing the file and putting it
back into her bag. Daniels and Capriotti stood motionless,
staring at the door.
"Not so mouthy now, are we?" Capriotti whispered. "Shall
we see if it’s him?"
"Be madness not to," Daniels replied, his attempt at
nonchalance falling flat. He stepped forward and knocked
loudly on the door. They could hear a radio inside and then
bolts being pulled back. The door opened and an old man
peered out at the three people standing in the corridor.
Daniels and Capriotti stood back, their mouths open wide.
"Fuck me," was all Daniels could blurt out.
***
Orlanov had spent most of the morning on the phone. Karina
had also been busy. He had sent her out on several errands.
having explained earlier that once this was all over they would
take off for warmer climes and spend some of his new found
wealth.
Around lunchtime, Harvey noticed a car approach the
gates. He focused his binoculars on the two occupants; one
was the woman he had seen before, the other the burly driver.
They crawled up the drive but he lost them as the driver
reversed around to the back of the house. Five minutes later,
and minus the woman, it again drove through the gates and
turned right onto the street.
Orlanov had been waiting for the car, opening the back
door of the house as it reversed. Karina had lifted the tailgate,
three burly looking men struggling from under the blankets
and quickly slipping into the kitchen. All three were NKVD
operatives. Gouzenko might be dead but there were plenty

266
more where he came from. Orlanov smiled; it was Gorbachev
who wanted free enterprise and that was exactly what the ex-
KGB Major was practising.
Karina came downstairs as the phone began to ring. She
picked it up, listened and then handed it to Orlanov. He asked
who it was but she shrugged her shoulders, the Russian
listening to the voice on the other end and then agreeing to the
unusual request.
An hour later another car drew up outside the gates and
Harvey trained his binoculars again. The car looked familiar
but not half as familiar as the man sitting in the passenger seat.
He watched as the front door opened and Orlanov stepped out
onto the gravel path, shook hands and then led his guest back
into the house. Replacing the binoculars on the sill, Harvey
stretched out on the cold wooden floor and tried to work out
what the hell John Fulbright was doing.
***
"You must be American?" the old man chuckled, staring out
into the gloom of the corridor. "It’s been a long time since I’ve
heard or used that sort of invective."
"Andre Pasternak?" Daniels asked.
"And who wants to know?"
Capriotti continued to stare. There was little doubt the
man in front of them was Kennedy. He was old, unshaven and
stooped but the face was unmistakable, the accent pure
Bostonian.
"My name’s Daniels and this is John Capriotti; we’re both
journalists."
"And the young lady?"
"I’m sorry, this is Natasha."
Pasternak gripped her hand. "I once knew a Natasha."
And the rest, Daniels was tempted to say. "Would you
mind if we came in?"
"It’s a little messy, I’m afraid." He stepped back into the room.
Mess was an understatement; the room was filthy. Old papers

267
and books lay scattered everywhere; most were in English, some
in Russian. Capriotti cleared a space on the couch for him and
Natasha as Daniels picked a chair over in the corner.
"I’m afraid I’ve nothing to offer you." He removed some
papers from a second chair and sat down. "How did you find
me?"
"Anna, the nurse at the Kempinsky sanatorium."
"Of course, a nice girl."
Daniels squirmed. Nice enough to get pregnant, he
thought.
"We know about Khrushchev’s Poslezavtra operation,"
Capriotti blurted out, "and how you were drugged in Vienna.
We also know a man called Kerchenko replaced you."
"Alexander Kerchenko," the old man murmured. "Now,
that was a long time ago."
"You admit you’re Kennedy?" Daniels said abruptly.
"A long time ago," Pasternak mumbled, the journalist
unsure whether he was answering the question or repeating
himself.
Capriotti was staring in awe at the old man sitting hunched
in the corner. "You certainly look and sound like him."
Pasternak smiled sadly. "Older, and hopefully a little wiser,
but yes, I’m sure I do."
The two journalists looked across the room at each other.
"How long have you lived here?" Capriotti finally asked.
"It feels like a lifetime, another lifetime." He stared at the
carpet for a long while and then his head rose and he looked
over at Daniels. "How’s Jackie?"
The question caught both men off guard. "We don't exactly
move in her circles," Daniels let slip, immediately fielding a
stern glance from Capriotti. "Although I believe she’s fine."
"She married that Greek tycoon; what was his name?"
"Onassis."
"Yes, of course. I put that down to her father’s influence;
she was always looking for someone who could take Black
Jack’s place. And what about John and Caroline?"

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 "Both grown up."
"They would be." He paused again, Daniels and Capriotti
watching as the man huddling beside the ash-filled fireplace
drifted back to a bygone age. "Their mother was certainly
beautiful and one of the most intelligent and sensitive women
I’ve ever known."
Daniels looked across at Capriotti and then back toward
the man beside the fire. "Would you mind answering a few
questions, so as to help verify things?"
Pasternak nodded, his thoughts still lingering on his First
Lady.
"What was your secretary called?"
The old man smiled, as if suddenly enjoying a new kind of
game. "Evelyn, Evelyn Lincoln. Mousy little thing with no
dress sense and tortoise shell glasses. Good organiser and very
loyal."
"When did she join you?"
"Now you’re asking." He rubbed his chin, his eyes distant
as he sifted back through his memory. "It must have been the
middle of fifty-two because she became my personal secretary
a year later."
"You had a friend in London..."
"I had several."
"This would have been just after the war. You were on a
European tour and fell ill. The doctor told this friend you had
a year to live."
"Shows what they knew," the old man smiled. "Pamela
Churchill."
Daniels looked suitably impressed and nodded across to
Capriotti that he was correct. "There were two guys who
worked as campaign gofers during the run up to your re-
election in fifty-one?"
"Billy Sutton and Ted Reardon. Real jerk-offs, both of
them."
Daniels again looked across at Capriotti and again he
nodded; the man sitting by the cold hearth was JFK. He might

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look older but the Kennedy genes were definitely there and
staring back at them.
The room was cold and Capriotti shivered, unsure whether
it was the dropping temperature or the emotion of the
moment as he looked across the room and into the pale blue
eyes of a twentieth-century icon. "Mister President, what
would you say if we could get you out of here and back to the
States?"
Pasternak smiled sadly. "What’s the point? No one would
believe such a story, even if you could prove it."
"We have the Poslezavtra file, it details everything,
including how Kerchenko was surgically transformed, the
switch in Vienna, the reports he sent from Washington. It’s
irrefutable."
"Maybe so, but we both know the American people would
rather have a dead hero than a living anachronism."
"What about Jackie and the children?" Natasha said,
speaking for the first time since being introduced. "Don’t they
deserve to see their father again?"
"After all these years? My name, my reputation has been
besmirched. Can you imagine the questions, the
condemnation if I suddenly materialised from their collective
past?" He stood up and moved over to the small, dirty
window. "No, this is my life now." He held out his frail arms.
"None of us can go back to a time, to a place that no longer
exists."
"I think you’re wrong, Mister President," Capriotti said,
trying to keep his voice calm and respectful. "There are so
many unanswered questions. Questions only you have answers
to."
"Pulitzer winning answers," Daniels murmured out of
earshot of the man standing beside the window.
Pasternak returned to his chair and tugged at a cardigan
hanging off the back, Natasha getting up off the couch and
helping him drape it over too thin shoulders. "Lyndon got it
wrong, you know; I wanted to pull the troops out of Asia. The

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French had already had their asses whipped and we just walked
up to the precipice and jumped off the edge. It was another
black hole waiting to happen." He smiled again. "I guess old
McNamara finally got his own way."
"You could correct history, tell the world what really
happened during the Camelot years." Capriotti's tone was
deferential but the implication was anything but.
"Camelot." Pasternak chuckled. "Sweet Jackie, always the
romantic; how old would she be now?"
"You tell us." Daniels said, ignoring another warning glance
from across the room.
"Let’s see, she was born in twenty-nine," he murmured, "so,
that would make her sixty-one." He smiled again, his eyes
suddenly bright and alive. "You should have seen her as a
young woman. God, but she was beautiful. Those long slim
legs and that wonderfully enigmatic smile." He hesitated,
savouring the memory. "It would be nice to see her again,
before I die."
"You know you have lung cancer?" Natasha asked softly.
"They’ve told me I’ve one, maybe two years at best."
"They were wrong before," Daniels said.
"Not this time. Too many cheap cigarettes and harsh
Russian winters have taken their toll. If the cancer doesn’t get
me, the bronchial pneumonia will."
Capriotti stood and crossed to the fireplace. "Come back
with us, sir. You surely owe it to your family to spend your last
few years with them?"
A sad look crossed Pasternak’s face. "My family, my whole
life, it was ripped apart and discarded along with history’s
other unwanted refuse."
"Your younger brother’s still alive," Capriotti said.
Pasternak straightened in his chair, the sad look receding, a
slow, almost conspiratorial smile crossing his pallid features.
"How is Teddy?"
Daniels looked questioningly at Capriotti who in turn
shrugged his shoulders. "The Senator’s fine, something of a

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credibility problem but nothing the Kennedy clan can’t gloss
over."
Pasternak laughed aloud. "Old Joe, what a character. There
was nothing he couldn’t fix, no one he couldn’t buy. It was
endemic throughout the whole administration."
"If you come back with us, we can re-write the past and tell
the truth as it should be told."
"Some things are better left untold, Mr Capriotti." He
pulled the dirty cardigan tightly around his chest. "Jack
Kennedy died a young man, it's probably best it remains that
way." He suddenly began coughing and Natasha found a dirty
glass in the small kitchen, rinsed it and brought through some
tap water. His pale blue eyes thanked her as she helped him sip
from the cracked glass. "I’m sorry, I tire easily these days."
Capriotti rose and moved towards the door. "Would you
mind if we came back tomorrow?"
"Not at all." His eyes were suddenly twinkling again. "And
I’ll see if I can find something more exciting to drink than
water." He coughed again and this time several specks of
bright red blood settled on his lower lip.
Daniels rose and held out his hand. "It was a pleasure to
meet you, sir."
Pasternak shook the outstretched hand and then gave
Natasha a hug. He followed them to the door and waved as
they moved back down the hall to the stairs. It was dark
outside and with no sign of a cab they decided to walk back to
the Metro. They trudged in silence, all three caught up in their
own thoughts. No one spoke until they were sitting on the
train.
"It’s unbelievable," the old journalist finally blurted out.
"Un-bloody-believable," his friend replied.
***
"What guarantees do I have?"
"Keep Harvey off my back and there’ll be no more copies."
Fulbright was standing in the sumptuous study, having

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already refused the proffered chair. Orlanov was on the couch,
a small brandy in one hand, a cigar in the other. They had
been fencing for almost an hour. "There has to be a modicum
of trust," Fulbright said softly. "We deposited the money in
good faith and, but for Harvey’s intervention, copies of the
Poslezavtra file would already be on Saddam’s desk."
Orlanov stirred uneasily on the couch. "My properties are
now piles of wet rubble, the OMON are watching my every
move and Harvey’s still stalking me; who are you to stand
there and lecture me about guarantees and trust?"
"He’ll be taken care of, you have my word. My concern at
the moment lies with the files." He turned and looked at the
man on the couch. "Can you think of anyone else who might
have a copy?"
Orlanov considered the question carefully. The man
opposite was no fool and had risked a lot to come to the
Russian’s house. "There might be another copy," he said
carefully and taking a sip from his glass. "The courier who
delivered the originals was picked up outside my office and
taken into custody. If I’d been conducting the search, we
would have copied the disks. The arresting officer was later
killed but no disks were found."
"Who killed him?"
"That’s irrelevant, although he was with two Americans and
a Russian girl when he was shot. It’s conceivable that they
might have a copy of the file."
"John Capriotti?"
Orlanov smiled, the CIA man was good, very good. "Your
information is impressive," the Russian said, placing the glass
on the small table beside the couch. "But do you know the
name of the girl?" Fulbright shook his head. Orlanov leaned
forward. "Natasha Kerchenko."
"The daughter?"
"So it would seem. I don't know the other man but would
assume he’s one of Capriotti’s colleagues."
"Any thoughts on where they might be?"

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 Orlanov shook his head. "They were in Leningrad several
days ago, but managed to give me the slip. The last I heard
they were making for the border."
"I’m reliably informed they’re here in Moscow," Fulbright
said, wondering if the Russian was lying or trying to gain some
form of advantage. "You’ve no idea where they might be
staying?"
Orlanov shook his head. He looked genuinely surprised.
"Why would they return here?" he said, more to himself than
to the American.
"Why indeed?"
Getting up, Orlanov poured himself another brandy and
again offered the bottle to Fulbright. "Perhaps your President
is still alive?" he said, replacing the stopper and returning the
expensive bottle to the ornate globe. "Which would make
sense because without the star witness it will be hard to
authenticate the files."
"Hard, yes, but not impossible," Fulbright replied. He had
lied when Orlanov had asked if he knew the girl’s identity. The
phone call to New York had told him Capriotti was in
Moscow and that he was working with the girl. The
knowledge that a journalist might be in possession of the
Poslezavtra file, along with Kerchenko’s daughter, had forced
him to catch the first flight to Moscow. "Do you know if he's
alive?"
Orlanov got up and moved towards the door, an angry look
on his face. "I neither know nor care but get Harvey off my
back and I’ll help find him."
"Join forces you mean?" This time, Fulbright was genuinely
surprised by the Russian’s offer.
"Have you a better idea? You presumably want Kennedy
and the others dead and I most certainly want to live long
enough to enjoy my money."
***
Narrowing eyes had watched from across the road as Fulbright

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walked from the house to the car. The driver had kept the
engine running and the lights were switched on as the front
door opened.
Harvey was now standing on the Belorusskaya Railway
Concourse in the centre of Moscow. It was a high, stucco-
coffered hall with a tessellated floor in Belarus rug pattern and
mosaic panel style, depicting flower-bedecked citizens in
national dress and apparently enjoying a peaceful life. They
were in direct contrast to the muscular partisan figures in the
transit hall that had given their lives for the mother country.
Harvey neither cared about nor looked at the symbolism
surrounding him. He was impatiently waiting for one of the
peaceful citizens to finish his phone call. He finally hung up
and Harvey wrenched the phone off the hook and dialled the
Embassy’s number. He stamped his feet in the cold whilst the
receptionist tracked down Fulbright.
"We need to meet, I’ll be in the Belgrade Hotel in an hour."
The phone went dead. Fulbright smiled. Like Orlanov, he
had also suspected Harvey would be staking out the Russian’s
house.
***
"Well, what do you think?" Daniels asked. The two men were
sitting at the small hotel bar. Natasha had gone upstairs to the
room, complaining of a headache. The place was empty, the
barman standing over in the corner washing glasses. Capriotti
took a sip of the warm beer and grimaced.
"What’s it called?"
"Pivo."
"It’s more like pisso, if you ask me!"
"The story goes that in the tenth century Prince Vladimir
rejected Catholicism, the Pope apparently having claimed
precedence over sovereigns and Islam and thereby preventing
his subjects from drinking alcohol. Vladimir pronounced that
drinking was the joy of all Russians and that they could not
live without it."

275
 "You’d think after a millennium of brewing, they could
have produced something better."
Daniels took a long pull from his glass and licked
appreciative lips. He had spent many years in London and was
used to brown ale. "Gorbachev’s been trying to reduce the
nation’s consumption but all he’s done is drive it
underground."
"Did you notice the smell in Kennedy’s apartment?"
"Vodka?"
"Natasha said she saw a couple of empty bottles of Rasputin
in the kitchen." He took another sip of beer and then pushed
it across the bar. "Have you given any thought to how we’d get
him back to the States?"
"We won’t need to unless he has a change of heart," Daniels
remarked. "I can see his point; he’s a man out of step with
time. We take him back and his remaining years are going to
be spent in front of yet more Senate committees."
"Unless we don't tell anyone." Daniels swivelled his large
bulk across the stool and looked directly over at his friend.
"Like you said," Capriotti continued quickly, "the man’s
seventy-three and dying from cancer. He deserves the
remaining time with his family. Perhaps, once he dies, we can
write up the whole affair?"
"Damn, for a moment there I thought you'd forgotten
what a journalist does."
Capriotti called over the barman and pointed towards a
dusty bottle of Heineken. "It’s pretty hard to believe that JFK
has been cooped up in the Lenin apartments for the last five
years." He took a gulp from the newly opened bottle of lager
and smiled contentedly. "Much better."
"You don’t believe him?"
"Do you?"
"Most people would have known about Evelyn Lincoln,
although he described her down to a tee. Not many would
have known about Pamela Churchill."
"You did!"

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 "Betty and I met her several years after the war. We were
newly married, Reuters had posted me to London and we
found ourselves at some English toff ’s house for the weekend.
Pamela was there and we talked about old Joe Kennedy and his
love for Hitler and the Nazis. She’d known the family before
the war and was close friends with Kathleen."
"The sister killed in the plane crash," Capriotti said and
then asked, "Wasn’t the elder Kennedy killed around the same
time as Kathleen’s husband?"
"Yeah. Joe Junior’s Liberator exploded over England in
August forty-four. A month later, Billy Hartington bought the
farm during the big push through France. Kathleen herself was
killed in forty-eight."
"Pretty tough on the parents," Capriotti murmured, taking
another sip from the bottle. "Joe, Kathleen, Jack, Bobby - all
killed."
"Except Jack’s alive and living down the road," Daniels said,
finishing his beer and ordering another. "It’s not surprising he
turned out like he did, his old man cheated on his wife
throughout their marriage. There’s a famous story about them
sailing home from Europe and old Joe demanding that Gloria
Swanson accompany them on the voyage. They’d been having
an open affair for years and Swanson later wrote about it in her
memoirs, reflecting on whether Rose was a fool, a saint or just
a better actress than she was."
"Like father, like son?"
"I suppose," Daniels agreed, taking another pull of warm
beer. "Speaking of illicit relationships, how are things with you
and Natasha?"
Capriotti raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Why?"
"Nothing, except I noticed how the predatory Catherine
was circling. Michelson reckons she could suck a tennis ball
through a thirty foot length of hose pipe!"
Capriotti smiled, suddenly remembering the lingering kiss
at Heathrow. "It might be nice to find out."
"Too dangerous. That one would suck you in and then spit

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out the pieces. You stick with Natasha, she’s got way more class
and something tells me it’s becoming more than just bedroom
gymnastics."
"Novel turn of phrase. The problem is, what happens once
this is over? The Wall may have fallen but it’s still hard for
Russians to emigrate."
"Not if you marry them!" Daniels smiled, finishing off his
beer. "It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you so content.
Anyway," he added, struggling off the stool and clapping the
younger man on the shoulders, "get upstairs and see how she
is. It’s going to be a big day tomorrow."
Capriotti nodded, watching as Daniels sauntered towards
the open elevator doors before returning his attention to his
beer and mulling over what his friend had said. It was true; he
did feel content. Natasha had filled some long forgotten hole
that he had always managed to patch but never properly
mend. He gulped down the vodka and slid off the stool. The
thing was, he might well be content but marriage was
something he still found hard to contemplate.
***
The Belgrade Hotel was busy. It was situated several blocks
south of the American Embassy and due to its location was
more American than Russian. The menu was testament to the
manager’s marketing skills, with prime rib, turf 'n surf and an
assortment of other US favourites permeating the food list.
Imported American beers filled the shelves behind the long bar
and it was one of the few places in Moscow where Millers,
Budweiser and Molson were served in preference to their local
and European equivalents.
Catherine Whitlock was not a beer drinker but she liked
her creature comforts. Michelson had allowed her to rent two
rooms so she could use one as a bedroom, the other as a living
room. She normally ate her evening meal upstairs, preferring
room service to the restaurant.
Friday nights were an exception. American businessmen,

278
relaxing after a hard week in Moscow, would sit at the bar and
open their hearts and more particularly their mouths. It was
no different in Washington, New York or LA, excepting that
ex-pats usually congregated together and the Belgrade was
their preferred watering hole. She was sitting in the corner,
sipping a Manhattan and reading a book when John Fulbright
walked into the bar. She glanced up but paid him scant
attention. Several men had already tried to make their move
but it was Catherine Whitlock who chose if, when and where.
She was wearing an expensive two piece suit that showed off
her long legs and the curves of her body. She knew she was
good looking and that men found her attractive.
Michelson had come on to her from the start. She had
known he was married, but sex and marriage were two totally
different animals. She also knew she was good at her job and
that sex was merely a means of ensuring her career was placed
on the fast track. She enjoyed the sexual act and saw no reason
why it could not be used as a pleasurable working tool.
Calling over the waiter, she asked him to freshen her drink.
The ice had melted, the Belgrade’s manager knowing that a
warm bar would ensure his customers stayed longer than
perhaps intended. Placing her book on the table, she surveyed
the room. Most of the men wore suits and were drinking in
noisy groups. Scattered around the bar area were a number of
good-looking women, Catherine knowing that some, if not
most, would be high-class hookers, the Belgrade not immune
from the reach of the Red Mafia. She had been told that
several years earlier the KGB had virtually camped out in the
Belgrade and that most of the rooms were wired for sound.
The recent political events had seen their decline and the rise
of the Red Mafia, but she felt sure many of the wiretaps were
still in place and that only the reasons for blackmail had
changed.
The waiter returned with her drink. She smiled her thanks
and watched as a second man joined the first at the bar.
Catherine was an observer; she made her living by reading

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body language. She continued to watch, noticing that neither
man smiled or offered the other his hand. The second man was
slightly shorter than the first and several years younger. He had
a hard, uncompromising face and a permanent scowl. The
other man looked equally hardened but seemed more
naturally at ease than the shorter man did. The taller of the
two was dressed in a smart two-piece suit and looked like a
businessman. His associate was in direct contrast and
Catherine felt sure the very English Jack Blanchard would
have called his appearance ‘working class’. He was wearing
black jeans and a heavy woollen sweater. Her green eyes
followed them as they carried their drinks to a table at the far
corner of the room. Returning the book to her bag, she
casually carried her drink over to a group of men standing
several yards away from the same corner. She smiled
engagingly and was immediately invited to join them.
"The situation has changed," Fulbright said, the glass at his
lips. "Orlanov is no longer the main threat."
"You didn’t see him handing the disks to the Arab."
"An American journalist not only has copies, he also has
Kerchenko’s daughter in tow. Two days ago, they called
Kennedy’s wife." He paused, knowing the next sentence was
not going to impress Harvey. "Orlanov’s agreed to help us."
"And you trust him?" Harvey exclaimed, not for the first
time wondering if Fulbright had misplaced the game plan.
"We can contain Orlanov; the journalist and the girl are the
threat right now. All I have right now is a name." He passed a
piece of paper across the table. "He could be running around
with an older man, probably also an American. I want you to
make sure they go home in body bags."
"What about the Russian?"
"Leave him to me," Fulbright said, standing up. "Have you
got a contact number?"
"If I need you, I’ll call the Embassy. Who’s in charge now?"
"Tom Galbraith."
Catherine watched as the older man crossed to the bar.

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Excusing herself from the group, she casually drifted to his
side. Fulbright was ordering another drink. "The Belgrade’s
like a small oasis in the desert," she purred, placing her empty
glass on the counter top.
***
Frank Harvey had no intention of working with the Russian;
neither did he trust Fulbright or his judgement. Two hours
later he was back in the small summer house and again
watching Orlanov’s front door. He was still watching when the
black Mercedes slipped down the drive and out through the
gates. He waited fifteen minutes and then made his move.
***
"Tell me what’s wrong?" Capriotti said.
"Nothing, I’m fine."
"Is it Kennedy?"
Natasha rolled over in the dark and faced the wall. He
stretched out a hand but she pulled herself over to the edge of
the bed. Sighing, he moved back onto his side of the mattress.
He would never understand women. He punched his pillow
into shape and closed his eyes. He was almost asleep when she
spoke again.
"You like her, don't you?" The question was stated matter-
of-factly.
"Like who?"
"The overly-painted hooker at the breakfast table."
"Catherine?"
"Catherine?" she mimicked sarcastically. "I saw the way she
looked at you. What did she mean you could call her?" He
didn’t answer. "Have you slept with her?"
Capriotti rolled over and grabbed her arm. She pulled it
away. "You’re jealous."
"Stop avoiding the question."
He turned on the light and pulled her bodily into the
middle of the bed. Her eyes were closed, her face scrunched

281
up, her mouth puckered, her eyebrows knitted into a frown. "I
met her coming over on the plane. She asked me to call her, I
didn’t."
"You haven’t slept with her?"
"Why would I? I love you."
Natasha opened one eye and looked up into his face. "You
do?" she smiled coyly. He nodded.
"Our fat friend thinks I should make an honest woman of
you," he said, bending down and kissing her softly on the
mouth. She responded slowly, her tongue slipping between his
lips.
"You should listen to him," she murmured, as his hand
slipped onto her breasts.
***
Fulbright was on the couch in Catherine’s living room, a glass
of whisky in his hand. She had changed and was sitting across
from him. Instead of the two-piece-suit, she was now wearing
a flowing silk dressing gown, her long legs causally draped over
the arm of the big chair, the flap of the gown pulled back and
revealing firm white thighs.
"I’m not naive enough to believe I’m here because of my
charm and good looks." Fulbright's eyes were fixed on her
thighs, just as Catherine intended.
"You’re here because I want you to be here," she purred, her
voice surprisingly deep and resonant. "Tell me about
yourself?"
"An American abroad on business."
"Aren’t we all?" she replied, again crossing her legs.
Fulbright took another long pull from the glass. "You never
mentioned what you did."
"Nor did you." Her green eyes were hooded and half
closed, the effect alluring. Instead of answering, he finished his
drink. Rising slowly, she lazily moved over to the long couch.
"Let me refill that." She took his glass, poured another large
shot of Chivas Regal and then added two cubes of ice.

282
 "There's no need to be coy, Catherine. I'd simply like to
know what kind of business you’re in?" He accepted the glass,
still wondering whether she was a hooker or not.
"Not what you’re thinking," she smiled, sitting back down
on the couch. "I work for Reuters."
"A journalist!"
"Does that bother you?" she murmured, leaning back
against the padded arm.
"It depends on whether that’s the reason I’m here."
"It’s part of it; you intrigue me. I was watching you in the
bar with that scruffy little man over in the corner. He seemed
a little out of place."
"Frank Harvey was born out of place," he replied, taking
another long pull from his glass.
"Most of the Americans around here work up at the
Embassy." She tried to sound casual but the other man’s name
had set off strident alarm bells in her head.
He nodded and then said, "I suppose your kind hang out
together."
"Sometimes."
"Ever come across a guy with the Chronicle called
Capriotti?"
"I know of him," she said, leaning forward and placing her
drink on the low glass table. "He’s over here at the moment."
"He's an old friend, I’m trying to track him down,"
Fulbright replied lightly and moving slowly across the couch.
"Any particular reason?" He tried to kiss her but she deftly
pulled back and instead picked her glass off the table. "You’re
not playing the game, I ask the questions, you answer and then
we consider what other games we might want to play!"
"Where can I find Capriotti?" he said, his voice suddenly
harder.
She stood up, the alarm signals in her head reaching a
crescendo. "I think you should perhaps leave." He was on his
feet and had his hand around her throat before she could make
a sound.

283
 "Where is he?" Fulbright growled, his eyes dark and cold.
She tried to pull away but his left hand grabbed the back of
her hair, pulling her down to the floor. Tightening his grip on
her throat he dropped down onto the carpet and whispered
the question again. She couldn’t breathe. Fear overwhelmed
her and instinctively she brought her knee up between his legs.
She heard his intake of air and felt the hand loosen around her
throat. She raked her nails across his face and struggled over
the carpet to the door but he caught her before she could open
it, his flailing arm knocking her forehead against the wall.
"You stupid whore," he snarled, spinning her around and
slapping her viciously across the face. "Where’s Capriotti?"
When she didn’t answer, he ripped open her dressing grown,
exposing her breasts, grabbing and twisting until she screamed
in agony.
"The Moskva," she whimpered, as he loosened his cruel
grip.
"Call him and I’ll be back to finish the job." The door
closed behind him.
She lay on the floor for a long time, finally crawling
through to the bathroom and pulling herself up onto the sink.
Her face was a mess, both cheeks puffy and badly bruised, her
mouth bleeding where the gemstone from his ring had caught
her. He had mauled and twisted her breasts; dark blue bruising
already forming around both nipples. She began to shake as
tears dropped into the basin.
***
Getting into the house had been easy; the motion sensors
covered the garden, not the driveway. He had climbed the wall
beside the gate and, keeping to the bushes along the drive, had
crept up to the front. He had found the side door and easily
bypassed the rudimentary alarm system. Once inside, he
moved quickly through the house. The man in the security
room was dozing and Harvey broke his neck before he had a
chance to awake. Leaving him slumped over the console, he

284
pulled a silenced Walther from the dead man’s shoulder holster
and moved through to the kitchen. Two men were sitting at
the table drinking vodka. His first shot took off the top of the
larger man’s head, the second thudding into his chest. The
other man was still fumbling for his gun when a third bullet
ripped through his heart, the force throwing him backward
onto the floor. Harvey walked over and pumped a further
round into the dead man’s head. He checked the rest of the
house and, once satisfied he was alone, returned to the kitchen
and pulled the two bodies into the utility room. He closed the
door and moved back upstairs to the security room, carelessly
pushing the guard off the chair and then dragging him along
the hall and dumping him in an empty bedroom.
Five minutes later, he was sitting at the console, monitoring
the screens and waiting for Orlanov’s Mercedes to reappear.

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Thursday, December 6th

C apriotti awoke with a start. The banging continued. He

switched on the light and checked his watch. Struggling
out of bed he pulled on his trousers and opened the bedroom
door. Daniels pushed past him into the room as Natasha
hastily pulled the covers over her naked body.
"Sorry, but we’ve got to get out of here now."
Daniels’ voice was clipped and urgent, his alarm genuine
and real. "What the hell’s going on?" Capriotti asked, still
unsure why the other man was standing in his room at five
thirty in the morning.
"Catherine just called. Someone, looking for you, attacked
her. She’s still in shock but thinks they could be CIA."
"The shooter?"
"Who knows...?"
"But why take the risk?" Capriotti said, finishing the
sentence. "We’ll meet you downstairs in five minutes." Daniels
nodded and left. Natasha washed whilst Capriotti dressed and
packed their things.
Daniels had already arranged a cab. "Where to?" Natasha
asked him as the driver moved off into the darkness.
"Lenin Apartments. My gut tells me they want Kennedy."
***
Harvey was pulled back from his thoughts as the buzzer on the
console suddenly came alive. He looked over at the screen and
saw the headlights of the Mercedes. Opening the electronically
controlled gates, he watched as the car drew up outside the
front door and four people got out. He recognised the driver,
Orlanov and the woman. The fourth person was almost as big
as Boris and, if anything, looked meaner. Harvey switched off
the house alarm; his eyes still on the monitor as the driver
opened the front door. Slipping out of the security room, the

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American crossed the darkened corridor to the top of the
landing. He could hear voices below. Carefully, he moved
down the stairs until his foot rested on the bottom step. The
silenced Walther PPK was in his hand. Boris and the other
man came down the hall first, Karina and Orlanov behind
them.
Harvey’s hand went to the light switch, the ground floor
suddenly bathed in bright light. Four sets of eyes blinked and
then looked towards the stairs, the man beside Boris
instinctively going for his gun. His chest exploded, splattering
Karina with blood as the bullet tore a hole through his left
lung. He pitched forward, before crumpling onto the marble
floor, blood continuing to spill from the gaping wound.
Karina’s scream, when it came, was ear piercing. Boris’s hand
twitched but remained at his side.
"Harvey!" Orlanov growled, his own hand moving under
his jacket.
"Don’t," the CIA man snarled in Russian, "unless you want
to join your dead friend swimming on the tiles. I want the girl
to remove your weapons." He moved off the step and walked
carefully down the hall towards them. "Slowly," he growled
again, as Karina pulled the driver’s gun from its holster. He
told her to place it on the floor and kick it towards him. She
did as she was told, then removed Orlanov’s gun and slid it
across the shiny tiles. He picked them up and removed the
clips. "Okay, let’s all move through to the study. The girl first."
The room was a mess. The desk had been thoroughly
searched, all the pictures removed from the wall. The carpet
had been pulled up. "Open the safe," Harvey said, shoving
Orlanov further into the room. The Russian crossed to the
floor safe and began turning the combination lock. "Pull out
a gun and you’ll die."
Orlanov unlocked the safe and stood up. Harvey waved
him back over to the couch. Inside were several passports, a
bank passbook, an old German Luger, Al-Sawabi’s money and
the disks.

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 "Have you spoken with Fulbright?"
"You might have fooled him," Harvey glared, pulling a
chair over and sitting down opposite the couch, "but as far as
I’m concerned, nothing’s changed. "Where are the other
disks?"
"What disks?" The Russian’s face was angry and belligerent
and not prepared for what happened next. Harvey, his face
impassive, lifted his arm and casually shot Boris. The driver
slumped sideways against the arm of the couch, a neat hole
drilled through the middle of his forehead. Karina screamed.
"Let’s try a different tack," Harvey said, getting up from the
chair and standing over the Russian. "Where’s Capriotti?"
"I don't know," Orlanov shouted, his eyes wild with fear.
Harvey shook his head. "Fulbright was obviously mistaken,
you can’t help us." The gun popped again, the bullet slamming
into the Russian’s thigh, a high pitched scream piercing the
room.
"For God’s sake!" he cried out
"God, now there’s an interesting concept for a KGB major."
Again the gun fired and again Orlanov screamed as a second
bullet ripped into his other leg. "Still no ideas?"
Before he could answer, Karina leapt to her feet and ran
towards the door. She never made it. A bullet smacked into the
wood above her head, Orlanov shouting out in pain and rage
as her limp figure slumped to the floor.
"You sick bastard, Fulbright gave me his word."
"His word," Harvey sneered. "Not something I’d want to
bet my life on." The girl on the floor moaned, stirred and
slowly opened her eyes. Harvey watched her for a second and
then turned back towards Orlanov. "If you can’t tell me where
Capriotti is, then neither one of you has any further use." He
crossed back to the floor safe and removed the disks, passport
and passbook before stacking the bundles of money neatly on
the desk.
He stared at the Russian and then at the girl. For some
unfathomable reason, he thought of another house long ago

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and Rose Delaney. "It probably won’t seem much of a
consolation, but I’m not going to kill your girlfriend." He
levelled the gun and fired. Orlanov gasped once and then
slumped onto the floor, Harvey stepping forward and putting
a second bullet through the back of his head.
He pulled the girl to her feet, her face cut and bleeding
where it had hit the edge of the tiles as she fainted. Her eyes
were glazed, her senses numbed by the inexplicable violence
and cold-blooded brutality. Harvey could smell the
unmistakable musk of fresh urine as he dragged her over to the
desk and placed a bundle of notes in her hand. "I’ve a feeling
you’re going to need these."
Rolling Boris over, he searched his jacket for the car keys
and two minutes later was reversing the big Mercedes down
the drive, through the open gates and into the road. The girl
was still standing in the study holding the dead Arab’s money
when Harvey reached the carriageway, unclipped Orlanov’s
car-phone and dialled Galbraith’s private number.
***
By the time the cab dropped them off outside the Lenin
apartments, it was after six thirty and Pasternak was still
asleep. They banged on the door for a full five minutes before
he answered, his voice slurred, his breath smelling of stale
alcohol. Capriotti told Natasha to find some clothes as Daniels
sat him down and explained that all their lives were in danger
and they had to leave. He didn’t appear to understand,
muttering incoherently in Russian as Capriotti helped him
dress and then draped his own coat across the thin shoulders.
They were back out in the cold ten minutes later, Capriotti
forced to support the old man as they walked down the street
towards the Metro station. The platform was busy, ordinary
working Russians making their way to the offices and shops in
the centre of the city. They finally managed to squeeze into a
carriage, all four standing squashed together as the train
rumbled through the darkness and into the centre of Moscow.

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 They changed trains at Novokuznetskaya and took the
Zamoskvoretskaya line north, getting off at Chehovskaya. It
was nearly nine when they again climbed out into the grey
cold of the Moscow morning. Capriotti shivered, his coat still
tightly wound around Pasternak’s shoulders, Natasha now
holding him and ensuring that the old man did not slip on the
icy sidewalk.
"It could be a trap," Capriotti said as they walked towards
the Reuters’ office block.
"If Catherine’s right, there’s not much point going to the
American Embassy. I can’t see that we’ve much choice."
The security guard on the main reception desk waved at
their press passes and they took the elevator to the sixth floor.
The receptionist was expecting them and showed them
directly through to the main conference room. Stevens and
Blanchard were in discussion; Catherine Whitlock standing at
the window and staring out onto the drab Moscow skyline.
Daniels had not wanted to involve Stevens or, for that matter,
Reuters, but the unexpected attack on Catherine had left him
with little choice. He had told her when she phoned that he
would come past the office and explain everything.
***
"This is bullshit!" Stevens had said, half way through the
morning, Daniels giving him a venomous look that ensured
the Moscow head made no further interruptions. It was nearly
midday when he finally finished. He had gone over the whole
story, beginning with the visit to Orlanov’s club and ending
with the discovery that Kennedy was still alive and living in
the Lenin apartments as Andre Pasternak.
For over an hour, Blanchard and Stevens questioned the
man sitting on the couch. Catherine was in the corner, her
eyes watching, her ears listening but the information not truly
registering. Daniels went over and sat down beside her, the
traumatised woman flinching as he tried to put a reassuring
arm around her shoulders.

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 The frail old man spoke about his early life, his brothers
and sisters, his days on the Dexter School football team and
the intense rivalry between him and Joe Junior. He
remembered the afternoon he and Joe had had an argument
and had ridden their bikes towards each other. They had hit
head on and he had received twenty-eight stitches, young Joe
walking away without a scratch.
He talked about his younger sister, Rosemary and how his
father had hidden her away in an institution because she was
mentally retarded. He recounted that Joe Senior had ordered a
pre-frontal lobotomy without telling any other members of
the family, including his wife. The operation was carried out
in nineteen forty-one and had reduced his sister to nothing
more than a shell. He told them that he was never allowed to
visit her again after she was confined to a Wisconsin nursing
convent, his father maintaining the fiction that Rosemary was
a shy girl whose vocation was nursing mentally retarded
children.
He spoke about his years at Choate and his father’s pride
when he had graduated. Blanchard had asked about his time
at the London School of Economics, the reply sharp and
reminding the Englishman that his stay had been cut short by
a severe bout of jaundice.
Stevens wanted to know about his war years and the
incident involving PT-109, Pasternak smiling and asking
whether he wanted the sanitised version. Stevens shook his
head; he wanted the facts.
"There’s not much to tell. The Japanese destroyer, Amagiri,
ran down my PT-boat, the Navy understandably embarrassed
that a fast, lightweight attack craft could be rammed and cut
in half by a slow moving destroyer. Two of my men were lost
in the collision but the rest of us managed to cling to the
upturned hull. During the night, we swam to an island. I
pulled Patrick McMahon behind me although, and contrary
to what the press later said, I did not have the straps of his Mae
West between my teeth."

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 "What about the coconut?"
"Oh, it exists," Pasternak chuckled, apparently amused that
it still seemed of interest. "It had pride of place on my desk in
the Oval Office. I was put forward for a silver star but it was
later downgraded to a lifesaving Navy and Marine Corps
medal. I doubt if I’d have even received that if my father had
not pressurised Jimmy Forrestal."
"Who?" Daniels asked from across the room.
"James Forrestal, Under-Secretary of the Navy. He was a
close friend of my father. Without him, the whole incident
would have been consigned to naval history as nothing more
than an embarrassing footnote. Old Joe knew how to milk the
maximum mileage from his version of events."
"So you weren’t the young hero I read about in Survival?"
"What do you think? The Japs caught us napping at our
post and ran us down. It takes a pretty creative mind and Joe
Kennedy’s money to make a hero from that!"
Stevens got up from behind the desk and stretched his legs.
"Okay, I’m convinced, but if this is true, why is our side after
you?"
"Simple," Daniels replied, finishing off his coffee and then
shuddering as the cold liquid hit the back of his throat. "Joe
Public gets told Kennedy was assassinated by a lone assassin in
Dallas. We don't believe it but the alternatives are so bizarre that
we’ve little choice but to go along with the explanation. If Jack
here were to suddenly reappear, then the Executive would have
to admit that they lied to Congress, the Senate and the world at
large. To top it all, they’d have to admit the Russians had placed
their man in the White House. The files show how the CIA
discovered Kerchenko but only after Gromyko told them. It
looks certain the only reason the Russians owned up was
because their man was beginning to believe in his own role. He
had stopped sending in reports and was acting more and more
like a real President and less like a Russian agent. My guess is he
was so indoctrinated and programmed to believe he was
Kennedy that he began to assume the real JFK’s persona. He was

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sleeping with his wife, was surrogate father to his kids and in
control of the most powerful nation the world has ever seen."
"It would also explain the personal enmity over the Cuban
missile crisis," Capriotti interrupted. "We now know how
close the world came to nuclear annihilation. It’s a sobering
thought that the two main protagonists were both Russian:
one in the White House, one in the Kremlin."
Natasha was the only person in the room to notice the
smile that suddenly appeared on Pasternak’s face. She watched
him as the journalists continued to discuss the missile crisis
and the sickening irony that two Russians had come within
hours of plunging the world into a nuclear holocaust.
"I’m surprised they didn’t take him out in Berlin," Daniels
mused. "There’s Kerchenko, giving the famous ‘Ich bin ein
Berliner’ speech at the Brandenburg Gate and the Russians
over the wall hearing every word. Imagine how Khrushchev
felt when his protégé stood up and basically told them they
could kiss his ‘red’ ass goodbye."
"What about the CIA?" Catherine said from the couch. All
heads turned and looked at her bruised face. "It’s pretty
obvious they won't want Kennedy turning up on the early
evening news. If Dan’s right, and they killed Kerchenko in
Dallas, then they also killed a lot of other people to contain
the conspiracy theory."
"Which means all our lives will be in danger until we get
him onto national TV," Daniels agreed. He looked over at
Stevens. "I phoned Michelson after Catherine called. All he
knows is we’ve plugged into the hottest story of the century
but he agreed to lay on the corporate jet."
"It would have been nice to be consulted," Stevens griped.
"I suggest we take Catherine with us," Daniels continued
and again ignoring the Moscow head. "If she stays here and
they learn we’ve flown the nest, they might assume she knows
the whereabouts of the files."
"And what about us?" Stevens asked, looking over at Jack
Blanchard.

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 "I’m staying put," the Englishman smiled. "Just make sure
I get a mention in the by-line."
They continued the conversation for another hour before
taking a break. Natasha followed Capriotti out into the hall
and asked if he’d be flying out with Daniels, Pasternak and
Catherine. He placed his hands on her shoulders and told her
he would not be leaving unless she was with them. The relief
on her face was almost palpable. Telling her to keep an eye on
Pasternak, he cornered Daniels at the coffee machine.
"Catherine’s still in shock," he said, spooning instant coffee
into the cup and pouring in boiling water.
"I’ve a feeling it’s got more to do with the sudden realisation
of what she’s been doing for the past few years."
"If it was the CIA, then it’s not going to take them long to
track us down. They’ll already know she’s with Reuters."
Daniels motioned for Capriotti to follow him as he moved
back down the hall and into an empty room. He closed the
door. "I don't think this is a sanctioned CIA operation. Most
of the old war-horses were put out to pasture during the
Carter administration. Dulles and Bissell are long dead and, as
far as I know, McCone was pensioned off back in the seventies.
I’ve got a bad feeling this could be a rogue operation. I’d also
bet there’s a connection between this and the hit on the Iraqi
Embassy."
"What’s this got to do with the Arabs?"
"I’m not sure, unless Orlanov knows about the disks. You
don't send a gunman down to Leningrad just to retrieve your
girlfriend." He paused, before continuing. "Agreed, she’s good
looking, but he must have guessed we’d taken the disks from
Illanovitch."
"It doesn’t make sense," Capriotti said, shaking his head.
"How would Langley find out?"
"They maybe traced the guy who hacked into the German
files. Imagine the pressure Saddam could put Bush under if he
knew the truth about Kennedy?" He paused again, trying to
think his argument through. "Catherine’s right; whoever they

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are, they’ll stop at nothing to ensure the information remains
secret. This might even go as high as Bush, himself."
"You’re really scaring me now."
"I’m scaring myself," the older man replied. "If it does go
all the way to the top, then I wouldn’t rule out a couple of
F16s blowing us out of the sky. What better way to get rid of
all the evidence?"
***
Several miles away at the American Embassy, a second
conference was in progress, Fulbright having reached the Moskva
half an hour after Capriotti and the others had left in the cab. It
had taken a few thousand rubles to find the name of the second
American. Fulbright had heard of the man’s reputation and knew
he had good contacts within the Administration.
The small office in the back of the Embassy was crowded.
Galbraith was sitting at his desk, Fulbright standing to his left,
four other agents leaning against the far wall. Earlier, the
Deputy Director had asked Galbraith to procure files on all
Reuters’ Moscow personnel, including Dan Daniels. They were
now scattered across the section head’s desk.
The conversation was one-sided, Fulbright doing the
talking, the CIA agents listening intently as he explained that
Orlanov had stolen sensitive material, which he’d later tried to
sell to the Iraqis. His voice dropped to an angry whisper as he
added that it now looked certain that several members of the
Reuters’ bureau were implicated in the supply of this material.
Galbraith’s expression remained implacable, the Section Head
realising that Fulbright was being less than economical with
the truth. If not, then the order to terminate ‘Teflon Frankie’
would not have been issued and then rescinded. If not, then
why had Fulbright visited Orlanov’s house the previous day?
He continued to watch the impassive faces of his men as
Fulbright told them that another journalist had also been
implicated. He did not recognise the name and wondered why
Fulbright had not asked for John Capriotti’s file to be pulled

295
with the others. Galbraith was thirty-five, ivy league educated
and going places with the Firm and rightly assumed that
Fulbright had not asked for the other man’s file because he
already had it.
The agents nodded as the Deputy Director told them he
wanted an around the clock watch placed on Daniels,
Capriotti, Whitlock and Stevens. He admitted that he had no
idea where Daniels and Capriotti were, adding he had traced
them to the Moskva Hotel but they had already checked out.
Galbraith stirred uncomfortably in his chair. Whatever this
was, it was personal. The Deputy Director of the CIA did not
go into the field, particularly into the heart of the enemy’s lair.
The cold war might well have eased but he could just imagine
their consternation if the KGB’s top man was picked up on the
streets of DC.
Fulbright divided the agents into pairs and told them he
should be contacted immediately Capriotti and Daniels were
located. Galbraith remained silent as the men filed out of the
room.
"How about telling me what’s really going on?" he asked, as
Fulbright again opened Daniels’ file. The phone rang before
the other man could answer, Galbraith listening and then
placing his hand over the mouthpiece. "It’s Harvey."
Fulbright took the receiver and waited until the
switchboard put him through. He listened for a full minute
before breaking into invective and ordering Harvey to come
directly to the Embassy. He slammed down the phone and
swore again. "The bastard’s out of control, I’m going upstairs
to see Simonsen. Let me know as soon as he turns up."
"Don't you mean if?" Galbraith replied, and then
wondering why Fulbright only now felt it necessary to speak
to the Ambassador.
***
"Have we got an ETA yet?" Daniels asked Jack Blanchard.
"Seven thirty. They reckon it will take under two hours to

296
refuel and do the pre-flight checks, which gives us a nine, nine
thirty take-off slot." They were all once again gathered around
the conference table.
"How are you going to get the girl and Mister Kennedy
through customs?" Stevens asked.
"The girl has a name," Natasha replied angrily, "and I have
no objections if you want to use it."
Daniels smiled and fleetingly reflected on whether Stevens
was naturally obnoxious or if he had to consciously work at it.
"And we’re certain it’s landing at Sheremetevo-1 and not
Sheremetevo-2?" Capriotti asked.
Blanchard nodded again.
"We’re also going to need some kind of a diversion,"
Daniels continued. "If Catherine’s right, and it is the CIA,
then they’ll probably have a team watching the bureau. We’ve
also got to assume they know I work here."
"That’s debatable," Stevens laughed. No one else found his
comment funny.
"What kind of diversion?" Blanchard asked.
"I’ve already asked Andrea to book three tickets on this
evening's BA flight to London. It departs Sheremetevo-2 at
nine forty-five. The thing is, we’re going to need three bodies
turning up at the departure gate."
"Bodies!" Stevens exclaimed.
"Figure of speech," Daniels replied, trying to keep his
expression blank and hoping he was not being overly
optimistic. "If I’m right, and they’re already watching the
office, then its standard practice to also check the outgoing
passenger manifests. With any luck, it’ll give the others time to
get over to Sheremetevo-1."
Stevens’ face had suddenly turned very pale. "I’m not sure
about this, they might take out the car without first checking
who’s in it."
"If they do, then I’m going to be none too pleased," Daniels
replied, pausing for effect. "I’ll be in the decoy vehicle with
you and Jack."

297
 It was Capriotti’s turn to look up. "What?"
"We need two men and a blonde woman turning up for the
BA flight. "Jack should pass for you but even I’m realistic
enough to realise my good looks and svelte figure will be hard
to duplicate."
"I don't think I’ll pass for the President," Stevens stuttered,
looking over at Pasternak.
"Probably not, but then they hopefully they don't know we
have him. Put you in a dress and a blonde wig though, and
you’ll make a damn fine woman!"
Stevens didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
***
Harvey was shown into the small office at the back of the
building. Galbraith was already downstairs organising the two
watch teams. Fulbright was sitting alone behind the desk.
"Never could follow instructions, eh Frank?" Harvey
ignored the rhetorical question, instead pulling up a chair and
sitting down. He looked around the small office. There was a
large map of Eastern Europe and the old USSR on the wall.
Above it was a framed photograph of George Bush. "I should
turn you over to the KGB," Fulbright blustered, trying to
contain his growing temper.
"Your tame Russian had no idea where the journalist was
holed up."
"What about the disks?" Harvey pulled them out of his
pocket and casually threw them over the desk. As he did, his
fingers touched a small book tucked deep inside the lining.
"I’ve sent a watch team over to the Belgrade and another is
covering the Reuters’ building. My best guess is he’s up on the
sixth floor with that other journalist and Kerchenko’s
daughter."
"So?"
"Simonsen is never going to wear a hit on two of our own."
"Not my problem." Harvey yawned, stretching his legs
under the cheap desk. "As far as I’m concerned, you’ve got the

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disks and Orlanov and his Arab friends are no longer a threat.
Game over."
"You seem to be forgetting your past," Fulbright growled,
the tone mean and menacing. "We’ve got to assume Capriotti
has a copy of the disks."
"Like I said, someone else’s problem."
"What about Rose Delaney and that husband of hers, are
they someone else’s problem? Pull out now and I’ll leave you
to swing by your balls."
"It wasn’t me who decided to get all warm and cosy with the
Russian Mafia," Harvey sneered with unchecked contempt.
"If I go down, both you and Reisberg come with me. The
Kerchenko file should make sure of that."
Fulbright stared long and hard at Harvey, no longer sure
how far he could push him. "Okay, Frank," he finally said, his
tone this time more conspiratorial, "we play it your way. You
and I will stay in the background and let the watch team take
the lead, nothing else."
***
They had sent Andrea across the road to a department store
and she had brought back a print dress, high-heeled shoes and
the wig. Stevens was now sitting on the toilet seat and looking
at his reflection in the mirror as Natasha applied lipstick. "I’m
not wearing that!" Stevens yelped as Daniels pulled the cheap
blonde wig out of the bag.
"I don't know, it might add a new dimension to your and
Marcie's drab sex life."
"Not funny," Stevens retorted, as Natasha returned the
lipstick to her bag and took the wig from Daniels. She had
already slicked back what little hair he had, Daniels watching
with undisguised glee as she carefully positioned the wig, the
wispy remains of his moustache and beard already lying in the
sink.
They stood back and admired the transformation. "I’d go
for you myself, if I wasn’t happily married," Daniels said,

299
much to Stevens’ chagrin. A grinning Natasha held open the
bathroom door, Greg needing a push from behind to get him
out into the hall.
As he staggered awkwardly towards the open conference
room doors both Capriotti and Blanchard whistled
appreciatively. "Damn fine legs," the Englishman called out, "I
now see why Marcie wears the pants."
Stevens glared from under the wig but said nothing.
"Can we get down to the underground car park from here?"
Daniels asked. Blanchard nodded, his eyes still taking in Greg
Stevens in a long dress, high heels and a wig. "Okay, Andrea
will drive us to the airport. You four wait fifteen minutes and
then take Greg’s car to Sheremetevo-1." He handed two dog-
eared American passports to Capriotti.
"Where did these come from?"
"They’ll get you through a cursory inspection but not
much else. I used one of them back in the seventies when I was
going in and out of ‘Nam. I’m not quite as old as JFK but I
was a lot thinner back then. The other one’s courtesy of Greg’s
wife. Perhaps Natasha can tell them she’s had a face lift or
something."
"Oh very funny," Stevens spluttered, smudging his lipstick.
Jack Blanchard checked his watch. "We’d better get going.
It’ll take a good hour to get from here to the airport in this
weather. If John leaves in fifteen minutes, he should arrive
about the same time as us."
"Who’s got the other set of car keys?" Capriotti asked.
"Just be careful with it," the Moscow head pleaded,
handing over his Volvo keys.
Daniels gave both Catherine and Natasha a hug, shook
hands with Pasternak before hugging Capriotti and telling
him to take care. The others all shook hands and then Daniels,
Blanchard, Stevens and Andrea caught the elevator down to
the underground car park. Stevens complained as soon as the
elevator doors opened. The temperature was already below
zero and the short-sleeve cotton dress did little to ward off the

300
cold. Andrea started the old Volga and waited until the
windows defrosted.
"I’d like you to drive up onto the street and then pretend to
stall," Daniels said and then added by way of explanation. "If
anyone is watching, I want them to get a good look at both us
and the car."
Once out of the underground car park, they drove along
the quiet street and turned left at the junction. Blanchard was
watching through the back window but could see nothing.
They carried on for a mile and then turned up onto the outer
ring road, Andrea keeping the car at forty miles an hour.
Blanchard smiled as a black Mercedes crawled up onto the
carriageway and settled into the nearside lane. "Hooked one,"
he said, patting Daniels on the shoulder.
"Let’s hope they’re patient," Greg Stevens said to no one in
particular.
***
Capriotti checked his watch again and stood up. "We’d better
get going." Catherine nodded and pulled on her coat. Natasha
took Pasternak’s hand and helped him off the couch, not sure
if he really knew what was happening. Like the others, they
took the elevator directly down to the underground car park.
Natasha had agreed to drive the tank-like Volvo estate,
Capriotti helping Pasternak and Catherine into the back and
then joining her in the front. They too waited whilst the
windows defrosted and then Natasha put the car into drive
and swung it up onto the ramp and out into the quiet side
street. Catherine, like Blanchard before her, was watching
from the back window as they turned left at the junction and
made for the ring road. She did not see the brown Volga pull
out further along the street and slowly crawl up to the
junction.
"How did you know?" Fulbright asked, as they waited for a
slow moving truck to lumber past.
"Because it’s what I’d have done."

301
 ***
Stevens was nervous, the sweat trickling from beneath his wig.
"Is he still there?"
Blanchard swivelled again and peered out the back window.
"I think so. There are several cars between us but I think he’s
the one about half a mile behind in the inside lane."
"I’m not walking into the airport like this!" They were ten
kilometres away from the terminal and Stevens was becoming
more irritable by the minute. Daniels smiled to himself and
bizarrely wondered whom Greg Stevens could have possibly
screwed to get a job with Reuters. The thought was nauseating
and he immediately tried to erase it from his mind.
"We’ll park on the top floor of the multi-storey and then
catch the elevator down to the departure hall. Is that excuse
that passes for a cafe still over in the corner?"
"Yes," the other three said in unison.
"Okay, we’ll make for there and stay put until the last call
to check in."
The car was now warm and Daniels was beginning to feel
his age and the fact that he’d had very little sleep for the last
couple of nights. He was finding it hard to keep his eyes open,
the dull monotonous sound of snow on tyres not helping
matters.
"I wonder how the others are doing?" Jack Blanchard said
from the back of the car.
"No one’s following them," Stevens griped, tugging at his
wig and pushing a finger underneath to scratch his itchy scalp.
"That’s the whole idea, Greg," Daniels sighed wearily.
***
"I see the lights," Natasha said as the carriageway slowly bent
around to the west. Capriotti peered through the glass. Over
to their right were the old airport buildings and the runway
lights. She followed the signs and came off at the next exit.
Pasternak was snoring softly in the back. Catherine was awake,
her eyes fixed on the lights.

302
 Capriotti swivelled around on the vinyl-covered seat and
looked at her. "How’s it going back there?"
"Bad hair day." She tried to smile but there was no humour
in her eyes. Daniels’ earlier assessment had been close to the
mark and she was having trouble coming to terms with what
had happened. Catherine knew full well she could have ended
up on a marble slab and the thought was making her
physically sick. She was also beginning to realise that
Catherine Whitlock, femme fatale and hard-nosed journalist,
was nothing of the sort. The events of the last twenty-four
hours had shown her that, far from being tough and
untouchable, she was as vulnerable and scared as the next
person was. This dawning realisation had hit her far harder
than Fulbright’s right hand.
"Car park?" Natasha was pointing to the overhead sign.
"Let’s dump it outside the Terminal. I’m sure old Greg can
afford the fine."
Catherine smiled, despite herself. She thought of the others
and the risk they were taking. She would have expected it of
Jack and Dan but Stevens had surprised her. She felt sure he
had surprised himself. True, he had complained but then Greg
would not be Greg without complaining.
Natasha drew up alongside the terminal doors, Capriotti
jumping out and waving away the porter as he helped
Catherine ease Andre Pasternak into the cold. The old man
looked tired and groggy, his thinning hair unkempt, his face
covered with several days of stubbly growth. Right at that
moment, Capriotti found it hard to believe he was supporting
his country’s most famous ex-President. Natasha locked the
car, leaving the keys in the glove compartment. "Let’s hope he
has a spare set," Capriotti muttered as they led Pasternak
inside the building.
They found the information desk and Natasha explained
that they were meeting the incoming Reuters’ executive Gulf
Stream. The man checked his computer and told them it had
just arrived and that it would be another hour before they

303
could board. He suggested they could use the terminal's only
executive lounge. He waved over an assistant who led them
through a maze of dark, dirty corridors to a smoke stained
lounge. Unlike its western counterparts, it had wooden
benches, a linoleum floor and no heating. "Sure pays to fly
executive," Capriotti said to no one in particular.
Natasha helped Pasternak onto a bench and then crossed
the floor to where Capriotti was standing. "Do you think we’ll
make it?" she whispered, placing her arms around his middle.
He bent down and kissed her softly on the mouth. "I’m
more worried about Dan than us."
***
Greg Stevens was complaining again. His two-inch heels had
slipped on the wet terminal floor and only Blanchard’s
outstretched arm had prevented him from landing on the tiles.
The three men were now sitting in the far corner of the café.
Andrea was up at the counter ordering four coffees. The place
was fairly busy and several men were looking pointedly over at
their table.
"I think you've pulled," Daniels muttered, keeping his eyes
on the tabletop. "There’s a couple of good looking locals up at
the bar giving you the once over."
"Stuff you," Stevens said, trying hard not to smile. "How
long before we check in?"
"Half an hour. I want to keep them guessing for as long as
possible. I don't think they’ll try anything in here, it’s too
crowded."
Andrea returned with the coffees, the only plus being that
they were not cold. The Englishman wrinkled his nose in
disgust. "It smells more like Bovril than coffee." Daniels
nudged his arm as two clean cut men walked casually over to
the counter. "FBI haircuts?" Blanchard suggested.
"Or CIA," Daniels mouthed, leaning over the table and
whispering to Stevens to keep the back of his head to the
counter. They watched as the two men paid for their coffees

304
and then ambled back out onto the concourse. "No luggage or
briefcases; strange for an airport departure lounge, don't you
think?"
Stevens raised his eyes from the tabletop and looked over at
Daniels. "What now?"
"We wait. I want to give Cappy as much time as possible."
***
"How much longer?" Catherine Whitlock asked nervously,
walking over to where Capriotti and Natasha were standing.
"Shouldn’t be too long, now..." Capriotti started to say,
stopping in mid-sentence as the door opened behind him and
two men walked in. Catherine’s eyes widened in fear. Capriotti
spun around. Fulbright was standing in front of him, his gun
drawn. Frank Harvey was beside the door.
***
Daniels glanced at his watch and then pushed back the plastic
chair and struggled to his feet. "Come on, let’s go see if we can
get as far as the check-in gate!"
The others got up and they moved between the crowded
tables and back out onto the tiled concourse, slowly making
their way through the thronging mass of people and across the
terminal to the BA check-in desk. There was still a long queue
and they stood at the back, Greg holding onto Blanchard’s arm
to maintain his balance. His feet hurt but not nearly as badly
as his pride, Stevens knowing that the last few hours would
come back to haunt him at all future managers’ meetings.
They had almost reached the desk when two men walked
over to Daniels. He had been watching them for several
minutes and spoke out before they reached him. "Well, well,
if it isn’t our courageous boys from the CIA."
Galbraith was taken aback by the journalist's opening
gambit. "Would you mind coming with me, sir?" Two more
men were now behind Blanchard and Stevens. "We’d like to
ask you and your colleagues a few questions."

305
 "Fire away," Daniels replied, trying to waste as much time
as possible.
Galbraith slid his jacket flap away from his shoulder holster.
"Please, don't make things any more difficult than they
already are."
"That’ll look good," Daniels sneered. "Much loved Reuters’
journalist gunned down by maverick CIA agent in Moscow
departure hall. I’d like to see you cover that one up."
The men behind closed in, Jack Blanchard jerking his arm
away from the bigger of the two. "Easy lads, touch me again
and the Brit consulate will speculate why one of their own was
forced to deck a member of the US security services."
The sound of a very English accent confused Galbraith. He
looked at Stevens and then his hand angrily pulled at the
blonde wig.
"What did I tell you?" Daniels beamed at the balding
Stevens. "You’re irresistible to men with crew cuts and bulging
JC Penny jackets."
"What the hell’s going on?"
"You tell us," Daniels grinned. "And I’d suggest a tad more
tact and diplomacy when dealing with the international press
corp."
Galbraith moved forward, his hand resting on the butt of
his Smith and Wesson. "We’re all going for little a ride. You
either come quietly or we’ll see how bothered I am about tact
and diplomacy."
Daniels smiled easily and looked over at Andrea and then
back toward his two colleagues. "How would you lot like to
spend some quality time with the US Ambassador?" The big
Englishman nodded as the CIA men herded them towards the
exit. "You’ll like Bob Simonsen," Daniels said as they reached
the automatic doors, "we were at Yale together before the
war."
Galbraith inwardly shuddered. It could not have gone more
wrong if he had wanted it to.

306
 ***
"Well, well, if it’s not the delectable Ms Whitlock," Fulbright
sneered, moving past Natasha and into the centre of the room.
He looked over at Pasternak and then back at Capriotti. "You
must be with the Chronicle?"
Harvey stepped forward. "We don't have time for this, get
the disks and let's go."
Fulbright waved his gun towards Capriotti and the two
women and then moved across to the wooden bench and
Andre Pasternak. "What were you planning to do with this
piece of shit?"
Harvey stared at the old man, a glimmer of recognition
beginning to surface from somewhere in his past. Pasternak's
head had been bowed but he was now looking straight into
Fulbright’s eyes. "John Fulbright, CIA Dallas." His voice was
suddenly strong and authoritative. "Richard Bissell’s little
whipping boy."
"How does he know you?" Harvey said, his eyes still fixed
on Pasternak.
The old man looked across at Harvey. "I should, he was in
my office often enough. Him and that little Jew boy; what was
his name, Reisberg?"
"Still playing that same stuck record." Fulbright spat the
words out. Harvey moved forward, the long-lost memory
beginning to send icy shivers down his spine. "God knows
where they dragged you up from," Fulbright continued. "I
should have buried you when we had the chance."
"Who the hell is this?" Harvey snapped, turning away from
Pasternak and looking directly at Fulbright.
Fulbright levelled his gun at Pasternak’s head. "A nobody I
should have taken care of thirty years ago."
"It’s Kennedy," Capriotti said in a hushed whisper. Harvey
looked as though he had been physically struck, his eyes
swivelling back across the bench to Pasternak. The forgotten
memory that had been struggling to get out suddenly broke
through and crashed into the open.

307
 "Kennedy?" he gasped, hardly daring to say the word.
Fulbright pulled back the hammer of his gun. "Only the
cheap facsimile." Harvey’s hand went under his jacket and
Orlanov’s PPK was suddenly pointing at the CIA’s Deputy
Director. "What the hell are you doing?" Fulbright startled,
looking down the silenced barrel of the Walther.
Harvey took a protective step towards Pasternak. "Move
away from him."
"This isn’t Kennedy, you idiot, it’s Alexander Kerchenko!"
Natasha cried out, Capriotti stepping in front of her, his
arm stopping her from moving forward.
Harvey, confusion on his face, stared down at Pasternak.
"Who the hell are you?"
"He’s right." Pasternak smiled sadly. "Fulbright here, along
with McCone and Andrei Gromyko came to an agreement.
The real Kennedy was brought to East Berlin. We were
switched hours after the speech at the Brandenburg gate."
"No!" Capriotti cried. "That’s not possible."
"Of course it’s possible," Fulbright laughed harshly. "Do
you really think we’d leave Kennedy in Russia?" Harvey looked
stunned. His face had suddenly turned very white.
"You had Brown and me assassinate the President?" he
gasped, his brain trying to grapple with the horrifying truth.
"We had to. The real Kennedy had become a bigger liability
than this old fool," Fulbright said, again waving his gun in the
direction of Alexander Kerchenko. "Enough of this bullshit,
where are the disks?"
"On their way to Houston," Capriotti lied.
Fulbright’s face contorted into a vicious snarl, Catherine
Whitlock cowering in the corner as she recognised the hateful
look from the previous night.
"I killed the President?" Harvey whispered, the enormity of
what he had done suddenly flowing through his veins. "All
these years believing we’d saved the country from a Russian
agent."
"We couldn’t tell anyone," Fulbright said, suddenly very

308
unsure about Harvey. "Only McCone, Gromyko and I knew
the truth. Kennedy went off the rails. He’d spent two years in
a Moscow sanatorium and once safely back in Washington
wanted a re-run of the Cuban crisis, only this time he was
ready to push the button. He had the B52s in the air and the
Minute-Men primed and ready to launch. The country was at
Defcon Two for Christ’s sake, we had to do it!"
Frank Harvey looked as though someone had just walked
over his grave. Fulbright tightened his grip on the Smith and
Wesson. Harvey seemed to shiver, a cold hateful look crossing
his face. "And Brown?"
"Terminated," Fulbright said, suddenly swivelling and
pulling the trigger. The gun roared. Catherine and Natasha
screamed. Capriotti flung Natasha to the floor, covering her
with his body as Harvey fell backwards, a wet bloody patch
already oozing from under his jacket. He hit the wall and
levelled the Walther at Fulbright. The Deputy Director was
already aiming at Kerchenko, the old man looking straight
into the American’s cold eyes.
There was a hollow pop and then a scream as the Walther’s
bullet caught Fulbright just above the groin. He dropped like
a stone, the gun spinning across the linoleum. Harvey
staggered to his feet and struggled over to where the injured
Fulbright was writhing in agony.
"All those people," he screamed, looking down at
Fulbright. "Everything done to keep you and McCone out of
the firing line. You sick bastard." He knelt down and pushed
the semi-conscious man onto his back.
"Don't Frank." Fulbright's eyes rolled in fear, his voice high
pitched and shaking. "It was all McCone’s idea."
Harvey roughly pushed the silenced barrel of the Walther
into Fulbright’s gaping mouth. Fulbright choked, unable to
breathe. "I’ll send him your regards," he growled. The Walther
again popped and as it did the back of Fulbright’s head
disintegrated into pink wet mush.
Capriotti struggled to his feet and helped Natasha up off

309
the dirty linoleum. Catherine was shaking in the corner. Only
Kerchenko appeared to be unaffected by the dead body lying
grotesquely on the floor.
"Have you still got the disks?" Harvey winced, looking up
at Capriotti. He was half crouching, half-lying across
Fulbright’s corpse. The journalist nodded. "Tell them I didn’t
know," Harvey continued, his voice flat and strained. "They
told us it was Kerchenko in the car." Capriotti bent down and
carefully pulled open the man’s jacket. Fulbright’s bullet had
passed through his right lung and lodged somewhere between
his shoulder blades. "We didn’t know," Harvey said, tears in
his eyes. "We didn’t know they’d done the swap."
"I can’t leave you like this," Capriotti said, pulling off his
jacket and placing it under the man’s head.
Harvey groaned, the pain beginning to dull his senses. "I
killed Delaney and the others. Just make sure you get the disks
to the right people."
Capriotti recoiled. "You were driving the car?" Harvey
nodded, tears now streaming down his face. "His wife came
back when I was in the house. I didn’t have a choice."
Capriotti felt the hate and anger welling up inside. He picked
up the Walther and pointed it at Harvey’s head.
"Do it," Harvey moaned, slowly raising a hand and
gripping the gun barrel. "Pull the trigger."
Capriotti’s own grip tightened, his finger slowly closing
around the hairspring trigger.
Kerchenko’s hand reached out and pulled the barrel away
from Harvey’s face. "There’s been enough killing." The
journalist looked down at the wounded figure lying on the
floor, finally releasing his grip and allowing Kerchenko to pull
the gun out of his hand. The old man placed it on the bench
and then stood up. Natasha was staring at her father. He
crossed the room and held out his arms. She ran to him, tears
in both their eyes.

310
February 3rd, 1991

"I don't know if I can do this," Alexander Kerchenko said.

They were standing outside the brownstone building in
downtown New York.
"You can and you will," Natasha smiled, tightening her
hold on his frail arm.
Daniels and Capriotti were sitting in the car across the
road, watching as the two Russians climbed the worn
marble steps and walked inside the building. "Oh, to be a
fly on the wall," Daniels sighed, turning up the heating in
the Pontiac.
They had flown back to Washington on a specially
chartered flight. Simonsen had tidied things up, Daniels going
over the Kerchenko file and explaining to the US Ambassador
that nothing would be published if Alexander and Natasha
were given safe passage to the States. A hastily convened phone
call between the Embassy and the White House had brought
a tentative agreement. Several hours later, Bush had called in
Webster and removed him from his post as Director of the
CIA. A week later Capriotti, Daniels and the Kerchenkos had
been given a private audience in the Oval Office, Alexander
later telling Natasha it was like coming home.
"Some things are best kept secret," Capriotti murmured,
pulling a cigarette from the pack on the console. "What did
you think of Bush’s decision to pull out of Iraq?"
Daniels stretched back in the velour seat and considered the
question. "Saddam got his hands on the file, why else would
we turn around and come home?"
"Why else indeed?" Capriotti drew deeply on the Marlboro
and exhaled, Daniels opening the window another notch to let
the smoke out.
They sat in silence, their eyes fixed on the third floor
apartment, their thoughts with Alexander and Jackie Onassis.

311
Daniels stirred, turned the heater up another notch and
adjusted his scarf.
"You know, in a strange way I can see McCone’s dilemma.
They get Kennedy back and he’s hell-bent on wreaking
revenge on the Russians and in particular Khrushchev.
Imagine it, a Russian doppelganger impregnates your wife,
unearths all the dark secrets you’ve tried to keep hidden from
the world and, to top it all, saves the West from nuclear
holocaust. The real Kennedy could well have woken one
morning, looked over at his wife and arbitrarily decided to
launch the missiles." Daniels paused, unsure whether
Capriotti was listening. "The crazy bastard might have done it,
justifying it as some sort of divine retribution!"
"It doesn’t matter anymore," Capriotti replied sadly,
thinking back to the fateful November afternoon in the Irish
bar and Jimmy Delaney. "Too many innocent people were
murdered to keep their dark secret."
"I know, but perhaps better that than four hundred
million," Daniels said, not too sure that he believed his own
argument. "What’s the verdict on old Alex?"
"Same as the Russian doctors. He’ll be lucky if he gets
another year, eighteen months tops."
Daniels looked across at his friend, a mischievous glint in
his eye. "And will he get the chance to give away his
daughter?"
"We’re talking." Capriotti grinned, avoiding Daniels’
pointed stare and again looking up at the apartment block. "I
wonder how he’s getting on."
"Your prospective father-in-law is one hell of a guy. It
wouldn’t surprise me if he hasn't already persuaded Jackie to
run away with him!"

312
June 12th, 1991

T he bank manager leafed through the small leather

passbook, rechecked the identity papers and then looked
across the counter at the man’s face.
"Where would you like the money transferred, Mister
Orlanov?" he finally said, glancing down at the computer print
out and assuring himself that there really was two hundred
million dollars in the account.
The man on the other side of the counter coughed, his lung
still not fully recovered from the damage caused by the bullet.
"I’m not sure, I thought I might take some time to relax and
soak up the sun."
The manager was obviously pleased that the man opposite
was going to give his money transfer some reflective thought.
"You couldn’t have picked a better place. The Caymans are the
ideal spot to relax and enjoy one’s self."
"So I’ve heard. Maybe you could help me find a property
down here?"
"Delighted to be of assistance," the manager cooed,
wondering whether his help would be suitably rewarded. He
watched as the white suited man tipped his Panama hat,
turned and walked slowly towards the door.
The warm sun hit him as soon as he was outside and away
from the steady hum of the air-conditioning units. Stepping
out into the sleepy street, he walked the few yards to a gaily-
decorated cafe on the corner and ordered a large rum and coke.
Taking a seat, he looked out over the picturesque harbour and
across the bay to where several ocean-going yachts lay at
anchor. Between them and the beach a clutch of small sailing
boats were bobbing and weaving among the glistening waves.
The white-jacketed waiter returned with his drink and
placed it on the checked tablecloth. Raising the glass, Harvey
tilted it towards the sun in mock salute. "To retirement," he
smiled, patting his pocket and hearing the reassuring click of
two computer disks.

313
 The Author

Jon Symons was born in Yorkshire’s East

Riding but has spent forty-three of his forty-
eight years above the border in Aberdeen –
Europe’s oil capital.
The eldest son of two psychologists, Symons
has worked for some of the mean-spirited
characters brought to life in his stories – their
names only changed to protect a diminishing
bank balance!
Although now owner of his own service
company, Jon looks forward to the day when he
can leave behind the vagaries of the oil industry
and write full time – preferably whilst sipping
ice-cold beer at Rose’s Cantina, a welcoming
haven on the magical island of Crete.
 OUTRAGE
The eagerly awaited new novel
from Jon Symons
Blunt, no-nonsense company owner, Chris
Beresford, appears more concerned with his
business than the needs of a teenage daughter
he hardly knows, let alone understands, or an
evangelical wife who seems to believe the
hereafter more important than the here now.

His life today is far removed from the angry,

frightening streets of Derry where, as a young
pock-faced Para, he returned fire during the
horrors of one infamous January afternoon – a
point in time thereafter known as Bloody Sunday.

The sudden and murderous loss of his only

child changes everything and forces the guilt-
ridden father to re-evaluate his past and look
critically at the person he’s become. The
complex relationship between father and
daughter, husband and wife, soldier and
terrorist all come under the microscope as he
struggles to retain some semblance of sanity.
 Still grieving, he is requested to attend the
impending Bloody Sunday enquiry, his hurt
now turning to cold, vengeful anger and
forcing him to challenge the political
correctness that seems determined to place sole
blame with the maligned Para Regiment.

Faced with a Government determined to

keep the Good Friday settlement on track,
Beresford returns to a country and religious
bigotry he abhors to uncover the truth and –
when all is said and done – seek out retribution.

But retribution – divine or otherwise – is

revenge wrapped up in fancy words and, more
times than not, it has a terrifying price tag.

A tense, political thriller told through a

father’s emotive eyes, where justice – wherever
your final loyalty lies – is only ever meted out
through the barrel of a gun.
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